


our hearts beat so unruly (because we love you truly)

by dnbroughs



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Azazel Needs a Lie Down, Charles Is a Darling, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang AU, Erik is a Sweetheart, Fluff, M/M, Magic Car, Pure Crack, Wanda and Pietro are Little Shits, it's 1910 and there's no homophobia because i'm gay and i say so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-10 07:38:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19902148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dnbroughs/pseuds/dnbroughs
Summary: Erik is a mechanic, trying to raise his children, keep bread on the table and a roof over their heads. Charles is the only son of England’s most prestigious sweet maker, who has too much money in the bank and too much love in his heart. Coincidence brings them together, pride tries to tear them apart, and they learn how to love with the children, candy and a rather unusual car. (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang AU)





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it’s finally finished! this AU was the product of a 3am movie marathon and far too much faith in myself, and after a rather embarrassing amount of breakdowns, here it is. i poured my heart into trying to make this the least crappiest i could, so i hope you enjoy. also- a huge thank you to Destiny_Rain_Evans for their beautiful artwork! you've been an absolute pleasure to work with this past month<3


	2. Chapter 2

There comes a point in everyone's life that signifies change. For some people, it’s moving to a new place, or meeting a certain person, or even grabbing destiny by the scruff of the neck and taking charge. For Charles and Erik, it’s not quite so simple. For them, change is a force to be reckoned with, a force that they want to fight and embrace, if only they could sever their hearts from their pride. But, for everyone, there comes a day that, whether you want it to or not, change comes knocking on your front door, and you have to let in, no matter how much you want to turn the lock and throw away the key. While some have their doors bulldozed down, it seemed that change favoured them, slowly but surely picking the lock until it could slip in silently, and before they both knew it, their lives had been changed by something so profound, so magical, that they could not help but accept it. Despite their future being slowly woven, their strands becoming inexplicably twined together, they both knew that there was one day that had set change into motion.

That day, like all days, started with Wanda and Pietro, a car, and just a teeny tiny bit of the impossible.

* * *

Wanda sped up the hill, her dress tickling her knees as it bustled about her in the wind, her feet pelting against the wet grass as she trailed after Pietro, mud splattering up her freshly washed white socks. Every day started the same: Pietro would sprint up the hill as soon as he finished his breakfast, without asking Vati to be excused from the table, and Wanda would shovel the rest of her toast into her mouth before following after, never as fast as her brother, not matter how hard she pushed her legs up the grassy slope. Therefore, Pietro was always the first to get to the car, and that meant he was always in the driver’s seat, and Wanda would be damned if that happened today.

As they neared the scrap yard, Wanda caught sight of her brother heading towards the car, and she took her chance. Lengthening her strides, she edged closer to her brother and then, when she was within a few paces of him, she took the rubber coated cricket ball from the pocket in her linen dress and bowled it against the concrete yard, successfully rolling it in between his feet, knocking them out from underneath him.

“Wanda!” He cried as she leaped over him, giggles bubbling in her chest as she dodged his attempts to bring her down with him.

“Hurry up slow coach!” She yelled in glee as she finally, _finally,_ plopped down onto the cracked, faded leather of the driving seat, her hands clutching the exposed metal steering wheel, twisting it this way and that, imitating the sound of a revving engine with her mouth as Pietro dolefully trudged to the passenger side.

“Girls can’t drive anyway!”

“Hurry up before I run you over.” 

They both stuck their tongues out at each other before dutifully falling into their respective roles, Pietro hopping into the passenger side and pressing buttons on the dash, his brow creased in concentration as Wanda made more revving noises, sliding down slightly in the seat to reach the clutch pedal.

“All checks completed?” She asked her co-pilot, who was twisting a knob on the analogue radio before giving her a firm nod and a salute.

“All systems go.” He confirmed, hopping over the divide into the back seat as Wanda fixed imaginary goggles over her eyes, hunching over the steering wheel, eyeing up the competition.

“And they’re… off!” Pietro announced in his new role as commentator, leaning over his sister’s shoulder as she kept her eyes fixed on the road in front of her, navigating the track in front of her, pulling the wheel left and right to speed around the tight, winding corners of- she listened to Pietro’s rambling commentary- Monaco.

“And she races into the lead, Wanda Lehnsherr pulls into first place, and she’s there, she’s at the finish line and-!”

Sweet victory was quickly interrupted when a car (a real, working one) pulled into the yard, causing the twin’s heads to snap up in sync as a well dressed man stepped out of it.

Shooting each other a glance, they watched as Logan came out of his workshop, wiping the grease and oil from his hands with a rag before shaking the man’s hand.

“Stryker.” He nodded in greeting, flinging the rag over his shoulder as they sauntered up to the car. “Here she is. Competition car back in the day, one of the best racers in the world.”

Stryker snorted, eyeing up the car. “Looks like another rusty pile of shit to me.”

Wanda could feel Pietro still beside her, and she covered his hand with hers to stop him from saying anything that would get them in trouble.

Stryker considered the car, seemingly ignoring the two twins sat in the front seats, before nodding to himself.

“Twenty shillings.”

Logan huffed a laugh before lighting his cigar, taking a long puff. “I ain’t going lower than fifty, bub.”

“Thirty, and i’ll have her off your hands by the end of the week.”  
_Say no say no say no say no,_ Wanda chanted in her head.

“Deal.”

They managed to wait until Stryker had driven off before turning to Logan with thunderous faces.

“Logan! How could you-”

“You know this is out car why did you-”

“And now that horrible man is going to take her-”

“Why would you let him-”  
“Alright! You two listen to me.” Logan thundered, looking between the two. “Now I know I let you two rascals play around here, but I run a junkyard at the end of the day. I gotta sell these piles of crap to keep this place runnin’ so you two can keep climbing over my merchandise, ‘kay bub? Now, unless you can give me thirty shillings by Friday, Stryker gets the car, and there’s nothin’ more I can do about it.”

Logan had a grudging soft spot for the Lehnsherr tykes, he really did, but he couldn't deal with tears, absolutely not. That’s why he was pleasantly surprised to find that neither of the twins had turned on the waterworks, but instead it seemed identical lightbulbs went off over their heads as they looked at each other with menacingly large grins.

“Cash or cheque?” Pietro asked, and Wanda jabbed him in the side with her elbow.

\---

Charles Xavier took pride in many things. He took pride in his appearance, always making sure his suits were pressed, his shoes were shined, and his hair was just the right amount of mussed, artfully ruffled with pomade. He took pride in his name, knowing that his family had a reputation around town, and he held himself to the high standards the Xavier name required, yet he also took pride in the fact that he wasn’t the snooty, pompous, trust fund, white collar, oxford graduate, cucumber sandwiches and croquet on the lawn, high society prat many people thought he was, telepathy notwithstanding. So what if he’s a tad arrogant every now and then, a man can slip up every once in a while, but for the most part, he’s kind and gentle and patient, and he rather quite likes that about himself (arrogance is a hard habit to shake for a blue blood). 

The thing he takes the most pride in, however, is his car. It was a sturdy little runner, the model a favourite of Henry Ford’s, with a four cylinder engine, wooden artillery wheels, painted with nitrocellulose lacquer. Charles had absolutely no idea what any of that meant. All he knows it that it gets him from A-Z in one piece, it’s sky blue, and it’s _his._ He outright refuses to touch any of Kurt Marko’s money (it’s his _father’s_ money really, but it’s the principle), and he didn’t come into his trust fund until he was twenty one. He got by at Oxford, as any biology student does, but as soon as his funds were rightfully his, he invested in something extravagant, something Kurt would sneer at and something that could get him miles away from Westchester House as often as he wanted. So, a car it was.

He’s a good driver, too, if you’re playing fast and loose with the definition of good. Enthusiastic, would be the right term, or perhaps experimental would suffice. Either way, if Charles had to do a bit of fiddling _up there_ with his examiner, and came into too many close calls with pedestrians, well, what was the harm in that? He’s never actually hurt anyone.

That’s why, as he sped around a winding corner, ice cold panic took hold of his limbs as two blurs ran out in front of him. With barely any time to think, never mind stop, he swerved, sending out a very strong suggestion that whatever just rushed out in front of him should _stay still,_ and ended up tyres deep in a dirty, murky, pond.

Panting heavily, Charles whipped his head around, only to find two small children gaping at him from the gravel road, one of them radiating sheer panic and the other broadcasting his overwhelming want to laugh. Patient though he was, his car was stuck in a lake, so he let his annoyance spike.

“Well!” He called to them both, fixing his now mussed hair with a swift hand. “That’s a very clever thing to do!”

The young boy snorted, and the girl next to him- his sister, Charles gleaned- elbowed him sharply in the side.

“We’re very sorry, mister.” She replied, having the decency to look sheepish, and the sincerity of her apology was not lost on him, catching a stray thought about someone being mad at them.

Charles sighed. “Well, I should hope so.”

Putting the car in reverse, Charles rested his arm on the back of the seat and turned to look behind him before driving backwards out of the lake, hoping the wet, spluttering sounds his car was making was nothing to worry about.

“Just look at the state of this thing.” He muttered loudly, half to himself and half to the children, before gently steering further up the road closer to them, lamenting the stray splashes of muddy water staining pale blue of his shirt. “And look at the state of me!”

“Oh no, I think you’re lovely.” The girl nodded sincerely, which at least appealed to the vainer side of Charles’s nature, as did the boy’s wide eyes on his motor, and his starstruck “And your car!”

“Hmm,” Charles hummed, fixing them both with a look before letting his anger drop, glad that both he and the two children in front of him were mainly unscathed. “All the same, you shouldn’t be running into the road like that. Who knows what could’ve happened.”

They offered apologies again, even the boy, and Charles wondered where the day had gone if two children were running out and about on a Wednesday. Surely it wasn’t that late into the day for school to have finished, but a quick look at his pocket watch told him that it was, as he thought, barely past eleven, and he was quick to ask them both why they weren’t attending.

Brother and sister looked at each other panicked.

“It’s not a holiday, is it?” He asked with a raised brow.

“No, mister.” The boy mumbled as the girl kicked up gravel with her foot.

As much as he’d like to go into what Raven called, his old-man-killing-the-fun-education-spiel, he knew he was probably fighting a losing battle with that one.

“Alright then, you two, get in the car. I’ll run you home.”

They both brightened at that, whooping with glee as they scrambled in, and Charles couldn't help but chuckle as they hounded him with questions about the car the whole drive.

“Just wait until Vati hears we’ve been for a ride in a motor car!” The boy said to his sister, and they both grinned brightly at each other.

“What are your names then?” Charles asked as he steered around the corner, though not as fast as he was going before, lest someone else walk out into the road.

“I’m Wanda.”

“I’m Pietro.”

“We’re twins.”

“I can tell.” Charles replied.

“What’s yours?” Wanda asked.

“Charles.”

“I like that name.” Wanda said, and Pietro agreed, if the vigorous nodding of his head was anything to go by.

“I like your names too.” Charles smiled. “Now, where’s your house?”

“Oh we don’t live in a house.” Pietro stated.

“Oh?”

“We live in a castle on top of a hill.” He confirmed, deadly serious from what Charles could tell, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he spent the whole bloody day trying to drop these children home.

“I didn’t know there were any castles around here.”  
“Well, it’s not a castle exactly.” Wanda admitted. “But that’s what Vati calls it. He says a king used to live there hundreds and hundreds of years ago.”

Charles huffed a laugh. “And does your Vati know you’re not in school?”

“Oh he won’t mind,” Wanda insisted. “He never does.”  
“And besides,” added Pietro, “he’s very busy.”

A pang of annoyance tugged at Charles’s stomach. How could someone not care if their children were going to school? How could someone be so busy they could justify having a hand in denying their kids an education. Whoever their Vati was, Charles was going to give them a piece of his mind. “Well, he’ll have time to see me.”

Wanda and Pietro asked him more mindless questions as they drove, and before long, Charles was driving them up a narrow path to a- to a windmill? He couldn’t help but laugh as they drew closer to it, a great white building with wooden blades turning at a leisurely pace. It was framed by a dark wood barn, it’s thatched roof just out of reach of the turning sails, and next to it a house of red brick and stone. It was small, quaint, but boasted two whole floors as well as two great chimneys. It paled in comparison to Westchester, what with its whitewashed walls and marble columns but it was… cute. Cozy. A home.

A small outhouse stood at the edge of the property, just inside the perimeter of the wooden fence surrounding it, hosting a mailbox reading the name AZAZEL, whatever that meant. After hearing stories of their busy father and castle, he’d rather not ask. 

Charles pulled up just in front of it and turned off the ignition, and Wanda and Pietro got out just in time to be mauled by a massive German Shepherd who was, if their enthused screaming was anything to go by, was named Apfel. Charles got out of the car, pocketing the keys, before following after them, giving Apfel an enthusiastic pat on the head as he eyed the wooden sign sitting proudly at the edge of the property.

_ERIK. M. LEHNSHERR: METAL WORKER AND INVENTOR._

Bloody hell.

Charles strolled behind the children as they chased Apfel up the path, laughing and yelling, and he took a moment to eye up his surroundings. Ambling past the barn, he could see giant structures through the gaps in the wood paneling, some of them wide and stout with heads of tangled copper wires and bodies full of bulbs and buttons. Others were tall and slim, with protruding rusted dials and- good gracious was that a _rocket?_ Perhaps he didn’t give Mr. Lehnsherr enough credit.

“Mister Charles!”  
Drawn abruptly back to the present, Charles stepped away from the barn, sheepish at being caught snooping, but Wanda didn’t much look like she cared from where she was waving him over at the entrance to the windmill. With a parting glance to the rocket, because really, that must’ve taken years to perfect, Charles strode over to the mouth of the children’s so called castle, not entirely surprised to hear the sounds of cogs whizzing and metal striking metal.

“Is your father in here?” He asked, rocking up onto his tiptoes to try and catch a glimpse of what lay inside through the small glass window on the top of the door, and Wanda nodded in response. Turning towards the door, she hesitated, only for a moment though, before slipping her hand in his and pushing open the door and pulling him in after her.

The cogs of the central mechanism whirred and clunked as they walked through the centre of the windmill, and Charles had to admire the mechanics of it all, the windmill running so smoothly considering how old it was. The atrium was small, cramped enough that he could feel the heat coming off the conveyor belt that kept the blades turning, and he kept a wary eye on Wanda as she skipped between the machinery as if they were rose bushes, no less innocuous and innocent than the doors or the windows.

Then Wanda led him through another set of doors, and Charles _seriously_ hadn't given him enough credit. The central room was cavernous, yet so packed that it seemed full from floor to ceiling, an inquisitive mixture of well utilised and never ending. Wanda’s small hand slipped from his and he watched her run between the machines filling the room, obviously sprinting down a well worn path, and he really allowed himself to look, fingertips gently brushing over metal and ceramics and wire as he could only imagine what each invention did, cogs and springs and electricals all signing and shouting at once in a cacophony that filled Charles with glee. This room was warm, stifling, compared to the mildness of the spring day outside, and he gently removed his overcoat and hooked it over his arm, unbuttoning the buttons on his collar for good measure. 

He followed Wanda’s path, following the bright blinking of her mind to guide him through organised chaos, and he finally found her sat comfortably on a mans back, legs around his waist and arms around his neck, while he stood and fiddled with a spanner at a control panel, one hand on her calf to keep her steady and the other wielding his tool. 

Either he was being louder than he thought he was, or he was broadcasting his curiosity, as Wanda turned her head as much as she could with her arms currently indisposed and fixed him with a grin.

“Mister Charles you’re just in time!” Came a voice from behind him, and he spun around in time to find Pietro’s silver head appear from in between two large crates, holding a screwdriver in his hands, handle up, as if it were a knife.

He rushed to the man’s side and handed him the screwdriver, beamed at the ruffle of his hair it received him, and watched intently as the man worked. This, of course, had to be Erik Lehnsherr.

“Mr. Lehnsherr?” 

He got nothing in reply.

He tried again, moving closer and raising his voice. “Mr. Lehnsherr?”

That at least got him a grunt. Either this man was so involved in his work or too ignorant for his own damn good, and Charles sincerely hoped it was the former.

“Mr. Lehnsherr.” He insisted, only a foot or two away from him now, and the man turned his head to the side, and he looked like Charles was very much annoying him. The latter, then.

“What?” His voice was gruff and curt.

“Well I’m very sorry to persist about this,” Charles began haughtily, seeing as polite was going to get him absolutely nowhere, “but perhaps you simply aren’t aware that your children are running about in the road, and I quite frankly-”

“Would you mind flipping that switch right there?” He pointed at the control panel beside Charles. “The red one.”  
Well that certainly wasn’t the reaction he’d hope for. “Er, yes, quite.”

Charles located the red switch and flipped it, hoping it would at least get Lehnsherr to turn around and talk to him, but the man only grinned as a light bulb went off and a wheel on the contraption started turning, accepting Pietro’s high five and Wanda’s cheer.

“You really ought to try and exercise some more control over them,” he carried on, huffing now that Erik had let Wanda down off his back and was moving around. He flung his coat over a cluttered workbench and followed him.

“I suppose I could chain them up, couldn’t I.” He said over his shoulder, not caring to shorten his strides as Charles struggled to keep up. “A nice long one, of course, so they’ll still get plenty of exercise.”

He stopped then, grinning a grin that had far too many teeth in it, while Charles caught his breath from practically running after him. Tugging down a blanket from a shelf, he shook it out and lay it on the floor, going back to completely ignoring Charles.

“Don’t they go to school?”

“Oh so you’re the truant officer.”

“No, I’m-”

“Didn’t you ever play truant, even just once?” He sounded distracted now, as he fiddled with knobs on the machine and turned a crank, rubbing his hands in victory as the machine hummed to life.

“I most certainly did not!” Charles exclaimed, affronted, and scowled as Erik muttered something that sounded suspiciously like ‘I bet you didn’t’.

When he decided to take a ride today, he definitely didn’t expect to be preaching about the importance of education to a surly German- the name definitely was, and perhaps the accent, too- inventor, never mind insulted by one. Raking a hand through his hair, he resisted the urge to huff as he watched Erik press a button and a pump jumped into motion, and his curiosity, inevitably, got the better of him.

“Would it be too much to ask what it is this thing does?”

Erik looked at him them, properly, for the first time since walking through the door and Charles was hit by, well, by how attractive he is, really, but also how young he is. He can’t be more than thirty, only a few years older than himself, Charles suspects, and yet here he is, living, seemingly, alone with his two children, smart enough and bright enough to build a _rocket,_ and yet Wanda’s dress had a tear at the hem and Pietro’s trousers were too short on the leg and he can clearly see where Lehnsherr had patched up his own shirt. It’s none of Charles’s business, of course, but still. He can’t help feeling like it’s a shame.

“It’s, uh, an invention.” He finally says, clearing his throat. “My own design. It cleans carpets by suction.”

To further his point, Lehnsherr flipped a switch and the machine started to whirr with earnest, and he could indeed hear the air being sucked into a ceramic tube at the front of the machine. 

Charles laughed with unrestrained glee as Erik grabbed two handles and tipped it forward, moving it by a wheel connected to the tube, just as one would a wheelbarrow. “All that to clean carpets?”

Erik maneuvered the machine over the blanket and opened his mouth to reply, but was quickly cut off as the tube swallowed the blanket whole. Charles stifled a giggle at his disappointed ‘oh’, and watched as he turned off the carpet cleaner and stood by Charles’s side, inspecting the tube.

“Well, it’s only a prototype you see-”

“Of course.”

“It’s not really fini-”

“What does this one do?” Charles asked, already moving to look at another machine that boasted a host of colourful wires and what looked like a radio.

“Ah, well with that one I plan to transmit moving pictures by wireless.”  
Charles had to scoff at that one, and quickly straightened up and inspected another machine before he could be subjected to Lehnsherr’s frown.

“And what about this one?” He asked, fingers tracing a circular production line of hanging scales, each one filled with what looked like sugar.

“Ah.” Erik walked over, grinning proudly at his invention. “That would be a sweet-making machine.”

A press of a button later, and a sweet is released down a chute and into a tray, and Charles picked it up gingerly at Lehnsherr’s expectant gaze. It certainly looked like a sweet, with traditional red and white stripes of hard candy, but something wasn’t quite right.

“Are there supposed to be all these holes in it?” Charles asked, running his finger over the hardened sugar as Erik procured his own piece.

“Not exactly, no.” Erik frowned. “I think the problem is-”

“The boiling point of your sugar is too high.” Charles concurred.

“Oh so we’re an expert on sweet making, are we?”

Charles could feel his ears start to burn. “Well, as a matter of fact-”

“ _And_ an expert on child welfare, too.”

“I was only trying to help your children-!” Charles blustered.

“Well maybe my children like running wild in the street, if the thought ever occurred to you.” Lehnsherr was irritated now, shoulders set defensively, and he shoved his hands in his cotton waistcoat pockets.

“I do not see any cause to-”

“And in any case, how _my_ children behave, is frankly, no concern of yours.”

Charles’s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish, at a loss of what to say. “I was merely trying to-”

“So if you would be so kind as to take yourself off,” Lehnsherr practically growled, his legs moving in impossibly long strides as he maneuvered through the workroom, Charles struggling behind him. “in that fancy automobile of yours,” he picked up Charles’s coat and shoved it into his arms, “and go do good somewhere else.”

“Well I- I’ve never-!”

“Been spoken to that way before?” Erik inched closer, pushing Charles backwards towards the door. “Maybe it’s about time.”

Charles took another step back, but lost his footing, the toe of his shoe snagged in a wire or a rope and suddenly he was falling over and gripping Erik’s elbows, and he could just about register a sheet of steel from the machine next to him coming loose and falling right over his head and he tried to duck but he was falling still and-

The impact never came, and Charles opened his eyes and looked up to find Erik with his hand extended towards the sheet, which was hovering in the air, just inches from Charles’s head. Erik caught Charles’s gaze and froze, body going rigid, and he put the metal to one size, waited for Charles to straighten himself, and abruptly stepped away. Charles watched with something akin to wonder.

“You’re a-”

“Mutant.” Erik was defiant, chin high and shoulders squared. Proud. But nevertheless waiting for a fight. “Do you have a problem with that?”

A smile tugged his lips as he pressed two fingers to his temple. _Not at all, my friend._

Shock registered on Erik’s face like he’d been hit with a bucket of cold water, and his mind swatted at Charles like he was trying to get his hands on what the sudden noise was, or like he was a fly that he wanted rid of.

“You- you’re a-”

“Telepath, yes.” Charles slowly withdrew, his smile faltering. He hadn’t even gone that deep into Erik’s mind, only brushed his fingers over the surface and projected. It was much like calling to someone from the other side of the road. “Do _you_ have a problem with that?”

The resounding silence was answer enough.

“I see.”

Charles picked up his coat from where he’d dropped it as he fell and shrugged it on, adopting the icy front he only reserved for his mother and his step-father, and anyone who had a problem with his telepathy that wasn’t his sister. “Well then. Good day, Mr. Lehnsherr.”

And with that he left.

He managed to make it down the path and to his car without much trouble. He’s glad Wanda and Pietro didn’t see him on his way out because he’d, truthfully, grown fond of the squabbling twins over the course of the afternoon, and he didn’t want to have to explain to them that he’s leaving because he has to cry. He had just opened the car door when he heard someone shouting, and he turned to find Erik striding towards him, pulling his coat on as he went. Charles ignored him, and he hopped into the car and slammed the door behind him, sticking the key in the ignition to- to hear it splutter.

He tried again, and then again, and once more, to no avail, and he just kept himself from kicking the tyre in frustration.

“If you’re going to drive a motor car you should learn to operate one correctly.” 

Charles turned with a huff to watch Erik lean on the gate, giving him a sardonic tight lipped smile.

“Well I suppose it wouldn’t occur to you to offer to help me.” Charles huffed, and scoffed as Erik mimed tipping his hat and jumped over the gate. Charles felt just a bit smug at the irritation rolling off him as he approached the car, rubbing his hands together impatiently. “Get in the car.”

Charles rolled his eyes but did as asked, making sure to slam the door even louder this time. He watched as Erik flipped the hood with little more than a click of his fingers and fiddled about, no doubt without using his hands, smirking triumphantly as he nicked his finger on something in the engine. “You know for a mechanically minded man you really-”

The hood slammed shut. “Try switching it on.”

“Oh.”

Charles shifted in his seat, pointedly avoiding Erik’s gaze before turning the key again, glad to hear that the engine was running smoothly again, but less that Erik had been the one to do it. He didn’t even wait for Erik to stand back before smoothly reversing the car and driving back up the road, forcing himself not to look back, even in the wing mirror. 

Erik Lehnsherr was hands down the most irritable, ill-mannered, cantankerous _knob_ Charles had ever had the misfortune of meeting, and Charles lived with Kurt Marko. Flipping his hair from his eyes, he slowed the car down to a more agreeable speed, now that Erik’s house was far out of his line of sight. Maybe Raven was still in town. He could meet her for tea before she inevitably attended another one of those ridiculous parties she insisted were fun. Maybe he could rant and rave to her, once they were home, of course. He could do with spilling the events of the day to someone who would tell him what an arse Erik was and not judge him for being such a busybody. Well, Raven _would_ judge him, but she’s his sister, so he supposed it doesn’t count.  
Still, no matter how muddled his mind was, he knew one thing for certain: if he never saw Erik Lehnsherr ever again, it would be too soon.


	3. Chapter 3

It was approximately twenty-two hours after their first meeting that Erik saw Charles again. 

Erik fumed as he trode up the path to his house, cursing colourfully in German as he did so, the rumble of the engine of Charles’s car still lingering in his ears. How _dare_ he come to Erik’s home and lecture _him_ on how to raise his children. He was sure steam was billowing from his ears as he recalled the haughty tilt of Charles’s chin, the friendly sweep of his brow, the way he stood, so sure of himself, and the way he blushed so prettily as Erik gave him a piece of his mind. Infuriating.

He shed his coat as he closed the front door behind him, glad to see Azazel had already made up the fire to ward off the incoming chill of the English summer evening. His old navy buddy, Erik wasn’t sure where he’d be without Azazel, despite the fact he seemed to disappear more often than not. It was rare that Erik even saw him during the week, only the lit fire and an unwashed plate in the sink evidence of him ever being there at all. Still, it took the strain off raising two children alone. Their family was dysfunctional, yes, and certainly unconventional, especially when you countered in the fact Azazel refused the room Erik had offered him in the house, and instead decided to reside in what was essentially a glorified shed. Still, the room he had offered had meant a deal to Erik, and he would rather it stay in tact, and he’s quite certain Azazel knew this. It had been years since Magda had passed, but the room she had spent her final days in remained untouched, and that is the way it would stay. 

Erik tried not to dwell on the thought; it only took time away from complaining.

“Confounded man! Who does he think he is?” Erik fumed, unsurprisingly ignored by Wanda reading her book on the armchair and Pietro colouring at the table, used to his ranting and raving. “Coming in here and telling me how to raise _my_ children!”

He hung his coat on a hook by the stairs, pacing by the bottom step as his children sat, unbothered. “Do I need someone to tell me how to raise my children? Hmm? Of course not. Of course not! Where’s my jacket?” He asked, lifting up a pillow on the threadbare couch and throwing it back down again when he couldn’t find it.

“Under your coat.” Wanda replied, not looking up from her book, and Erik grunted as he lifted his coat from the hook and found his thinner jacket sitting underneath.

“Self righteous, la-di-da,” Erik muttered under his breath. “He won’t be bothering us again.”  
“Oh, but I liked him!” Wanda whined, book now discarded and looking up at Erik with honest eyes. 

“So did I.” Piped in Pietro.

“He was very handsome.” Wanda conceded.

“He was indeed.” Erik muttered, sitting with a huff on the old sofa. “Do you think I’m a lunatic? Wasting my time on those silly inventions?” He asked his children.

“They aren’t silly!” Insisted Wanda, moving from her seat on the armchair to settle herself into his lap. “They’re wonderful, Vati.”

“Yeah!” Pietro scrambled to the couch, sitting proudly as Erik ruffled his hair. “Who else would think of them?”

Erik grinned, raising a falsely suspicious brow. “Are you two after something?”

“No!” Wanda insisted, sounding offended at the mere thought of misleading her father, while Pietro shrugged a casual, “Well, since you’re asking-”

“Come on,” Erik said, giving his son a light clap around the ear for his cheek before getting the pair of them up. “Wash your hands, it’s almost time for dinner.”

They had just started their meal when Azazel appeared in the kitchen in a cloud of smoke and sulphur.

“Ah,” Erik intoned as Azazel fixed himself a plate, “so glad you decided to join us.”

“You know me, my friend,” he said breezily, pulling out the chair across from Erik. “Places to go and people to see. I am a busy man.”

“I’m honoured you could make the time for us then.”

“Nonsense, I will always make time for my favourite _akuly_.” And he booped Wanda’s nose with the tip of his pointed tail, causing her to grin up at him from her plate of egg and soldiers, and Erik to roll his eyes.

“What did you two get up to today then, if you weren’t in school?” Erik asked before Pietro choked from shoving toast into his mouth at breakneck speed.

“We went to Mr. Logan’s to play with the cars.” Wanda replied.

Erik hummed over his mouthful before swallowing. “You know I don’t like you going down there. It can be dangerous.”

“Oh, we're very careful.” Wanda nodded, and Erik hummed before returning to his dinner, missing the look the twins shared.

“Actually, we wanted to ask you something. About Mr. Logan.” Wanda said after a beat.

“You see,” Pietro interjected before Erik could reply. “Mr. Stryker wanted to take it away-”

“But Mr. Logan said if we asked you first-”

“Ask me what first?” Erik asked.

Pietro ignored him. “He’s a horrid mean old man-”

“He’s going to take it away-”

“And put it in a furnace and-”

“It’s so terrible-”

“Wait!” Erik said, banging the end of his fork on the table in the hopes it would get the twins to quieten down. “What are you talking about?”

“Our car!” They both said, turning to Erik with wide, pleading eyes.

“What about it?” He asked, not quite seeing their point.

“Mr. Logan is selling it to Mr. Stryker, and he said he’s going to put it in a furnace and melt it down!” Wanda seemed close to tears now, and he patted her hand to try and soothe the sudden sadness.

“Well we can’t let that happen, can we Azazel?” He humoured them both, and Azazel had the decency not to be a complete bastard for once.

“ _Net,_ not at all.”   
“We knew you’d say that!” Pietro beamed. “That’s why Mr. Logan said we could have it if you gave him thirty shillings.”

Erik dropped his knife and fork onto his plate.”Th-thirty shillings?”

“You can give him the money by Friday, Vati.”

“Er- right- I, well-”

“Maybe it’s time for bed now, _da_?” Azazel piped up, giving Erik time to have a silent mental break down. 

He barely registered his children kissing him on the cheek and saying their goodnights, and as soon as he knew it, they were tucked up in bed and Erik was on the hunt for something very, _very_ strong to drink.

“You could just tell them no.” Azazel suggested as he lounged on the armchair while Erik took a swig from the bottle of cheap whisky he kept from emergencies. 

Erik shook his head, groaning as he slumped into the sofa. He had never seen Wanda and Pietro as happy as they were when they were talking about that _verdammt_ car. In the early days after Madga’s death, they were eerily normal, as if the thought that their mother had passed hadn’t even registered, and they both said they wanted to continue going to school as normal, and in some ways Erik was glad, glad that his children didn’t have to see their father break down every time he saw one of Magda’s pill bottles or one of her dresses hanging out on the washing line. He got better, though better, perhaps, wasn’t the right word for it. He learned to compartmentalise, learned how to turn his emotions off when they got the better of him. He learned how to make things go back to as normal as they could.

The children, however, got worse, after the funeral especially. They began to act out at school, the seldom time they went, and they lashed out at Erik, who spent increasingly more time in his shed with his inventions than with his children, who reminded him far too much of his wife. It all came to a head one night over God knows what, and the pair of them were screaming at him, and he was yelling back, and then Pietro was pounding his little fists against him while Wanda sobbed and before he knew it, he had his babies in his arms and they cried together, on the kitchen floor. He let them sleep in the bed with him that night, something he hadn’t done since they were infants, and he found the emptiness wasn’t so daunting with his children beside him. 

It wasn’t right in the morning, he supposed that it possibly wouldn’t be quite right again, but it was… it was nice. It was good. It was a start. Erik still spent too long on his inventions, and the children still played truant, but Azazel assured him children will play hooky when they know they can get away with it, and the twins always dragged him away from his work when he spent too much time on it. He couldn’t let them lose what was probably the only thing that gave them genuine joy. He wouldn’t let things go back to the way they were.

He took another swig before bottling the cap, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and looking determinedly at Azazel. “I can’t.”

Azazel nodded. “Then I think I might have an idea.”

And with that, the red skinned mutant was gone. 

Sighing, Erik forced himself to get up from the couch and store the bottle back to its rightful place at the back of the highest cupboard, out of reach, and then set about cleaning up the kitchen, washing the dishes at a slow pace, taking the time to make sure they were thoroughly washed and dried, before putting them away and allowing the eventual stress to creep in. Where was he going to find thirty shillings from when he barely had enough to keep putting food on the table? And by Friday, no less. 

The panic started to set in when Azazel reappeared, looking like the cat who got the cream. “Ever heard of Xavier Confectionery?”  
Erik’s brow furrowed. “The sweetmakers?”

Azazel nodded. “You have an appointment there at two tomorrow with Kurt Marko. He runs the company. Don’t be late.”

“Do you want to explain to me how a verdammt sweet company is going to get me money?” Erik was all for entertaining Azazel’s wild schemes and odd sense of humour, but he was on the brink of a meltdown, and it was the last thing he needed.

“You have a sweetie machine in that barn of yours, da? Well then make them some sweets, and then sell them.”

Erik blinked, unable to understand how Azazel had thought of that and he hadn’t. “But it doesn’t work.”

His friend grinned. “You have until two, don’t you?”

So, Erik slaved away, altering the mechanics and swapping components, even taking Charles’s advice of changing the boiling point, but nothing he did seemed to work. He slumped against the machine with a groan and threw the latest piece of candy to the ground as it, once again, came out covered in holes. His movements stirred Apfel from his sleep. Stroking his dog as it padded over to him, Erik sighed. “I don’t suppose you have thirty shillings I could borrow, eh boy?” He asked, before coming to the conclusion he was slowly going mad. 

Apfel looked up at him, his head cocked, before he decided the discarded sweet was much more interesting and started chewing on it. Rolling his eyes, Erik stood up, brushing down his trousers before getting back to work, when suddenly, a low whistling noise filled the otherwise soundless barn. Looking around, the couldn’t see anything other than his lifeless machines and the dog, so he put it down to the wind and carried on. But there it was again, and again, and again.

“What the-?”

Spinning around to try and find the source of the noise, Erik’s eyes flit around the room until they settled on Apfel, sitting dutifully where Erik left him, holding the sweet between his teeth and- whistling? Crouching closer, Erik watched as Apfel kept the sweet in place and huffed, and there it was, a shrill, but not unpleasant, whistling, coming from the sweet as air was forced through the holes. A lightbulb flickered into life above Erik’s head as he sat down on his haunches, grin spreading across his face, petting enthusiastically behind Apfel’s ears, who gave a happy whistle at the attention. He knew exactly how he was going to get his thirty shillings.

And that’s how he came face to face with Charles not even a full day later, after being shot down by a very terse Kurt Marko.

The surprise hadn’t even registered on Charles’s face as they almost collided, Charles entering the grand foyer and Erik and the children leaving, before Wanda and Pietro had ensnared him in an enthusiastic explanation of why they were here. Erik could see his presence had put Charles out, but any discomfort or lingering awkwardness was well hidden as he complimented Wanda on her dress and humoured Pietro’s incessant questions about his car. 

Erik couldn’t keep his eyes off the younger man as they talked. He was dressed in yellow today, his silken waistcoat the same colour as the daffodils blooming on the front lawn of the office, and matched the delicate pinstripe in his dove grey slacks, and it made his cheeks look rosier and his hair impossibly more glossy and- Erik quickly shoved his thoughts behind high, shoddy shields, lest Charles caught even a whisper of what he was thinking. He shouldn’t be thinking this way about a stranger, let alone one he was sure he had made cry not even twenty four hours prior.

All hope was lost though, as Charles tilted his face towards him, and opened his mouth to speak before he was rudely cut off.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Xavier.” Said the austere looking woman who sat behind the front desk, features now soft and friendly talking to Charles.

Charles returned her smile with one of his own. “Afternoon Betsy, dear. Please tell my step-father I’ve arrived.”

“Are you here on business, Mr. Lehnsherr?” Charles asked after Betsy had taken her leave, and Erik was _not_ disappointed to see some of the softness had left his features.

“Yes, Mr-”

Erik could pinpoint the moment Charles had realised Erik had put the pieces together, a not-quite-smug smile stretching over his lips.

“You’re-”

“Yes.”

“And he’s your-”

“Stepfather. He took over from my father after his passing, and will do so until I come into my majority.”

Call it jealousy, or proletariat defence or whatever, but something about seeing Charles in what was _his,_ amongst the grandeur of the office didn’t sit right with Erik at all. He wasn’t going to hang around here long enough to explain to the town’s most eligible bachelor of the century why he was leaving empty handed.

“Come on children.” Erik ushered them towards the door without taking another look at Charles. “Let’s go.”

“But Vati!” Wanda whined. “You didn’t even get a chance to properly show him your invention!”

He chanced a glance at Charles over his shoulder. “Somehow I don’t think it’ll do much good.”

“But just a moment, Mr. Lehnsherr.” Charles called after them. “What’s this invention?”

Erik brandished his paper bag full of sweets as a reply. “You’ve seen them.”

“Oh.” Charles’s eyebrows raised in understanding.

“But they whistle.” Pietro said, holding out a sweet to take. 

Charles took one, inspecting it before looking up at Erik, who simply nodded. Tentatively, he held the sweet to his lips before blowing, and sure enough, the sweet produced a long, melodic whistle, and Charles couldn’t help the delighted bubble of laughter from slipping through his lips. “They’re just marvellous!” He laughed again, blowing once more to hear the sweet sing.

The children sent their own whistles back, but Erik quickly hushed them as he heard the clack of Betsy’s sensible heels approaching them. “Mr. Xavier your-”

“Show Mr. Lehnsherr in, please Betsy.” He said suddenly, his enthusiasm bursting from him as he inspected the sweet in his hands.

Betsy floundered, looking between the door of Marko’s office and Charles. “But Mr. Marko said-”

“Now, please, Betsy.”

Obviously caught between Charles and a hard place, Betsy released a huff of air through her nose. “As you wish. This way Mr. Lehnsherr.”

Erik hesitated, but was quickly spurred on by Charles’s shooing hands. After telling the children to sit down and stay put, he followed after Betsy, aware that Charles was trailing them too, and entered Kurt Marko’s office.

Marko was a gruff little man, resembling more a mushroom than a person, Erik thought, sat behind a large mahogany desk in an emerald leather wingback chair, which he was proceeding to flick cigar ash over.

“Where’s my stepson?” He growled as he saw Erik, and he reminded himself to stay calm, just for ten minutes, to lick his arse for ten minutes, for the children’s sake.

“He sent me here to see you, Mr. Marko. About sweets.”

“Well I’d hardly think you’d be here to talk fixtures and fittings, Mr…”

“Lehnsherr, sir.” He spat out the title rather reluctantly. “No, sir.”

Marko sighed, heaving a huge, chesty cough at the movements of his lungs, and then checked his pocket watch while Erik tried to hide the disgust on his face. “You have twenty seconds.”

“Right, well these sweets here you see are,” he paused as Marko stood from his chair and moved around the office, before scrambling to follow him, “not only delicious, but they have these strategically placed holes that add to their novelty, making them not only sweets but a- a musical instrument if you will. See-”

He held the sweet to his lips and blew, but the whistle was drowned out by a horn blaring in the factory, hidden behind the door they had moved to stand in front of. He went to try again, but then a moustached man was opening the door and saying something about tasting time.

Marko scoffed, slipping on the gloves offered to him by the man in the moustache. “Better luck next time.”

Feeling his fists curl by his sides, Erik kept a firm grip on all the metal in the room to calm his frayed nerves. He glanced behind him to the door of the office, where Charles, Wanda and Pietro were all stood with their noses pressed to the door, watching him. Charles pointed in the direction Kurt had wandered off in, mouthing ‘follow him’. So Erik did.

Following through the door, Erik found himself trotting down a steel staircase into the vast production room, that housed vat after vat of syrup, nougat and chocolate, with hundreds of workers stirring, adjusting and milling around. Scanning the room, Erik found Kurt dipping his stubby fingers into a large vat of lemon curd, barking instructions to a leafy woman with a clipboard, who was jotting down everything he said with a shaky hand. 

Weaving his way between workers and equipment, Erik soon found himself trailing Kurt as he continued tasting. “Mr. Marko, these sweets aren’t just a confectionery, they’re a toy, a remarkable combination of-”

“Are you still here?” Marko snapped, sparing Erik only one dirty glance before wiping his hands on the woman’s apron and moving on, this time to a large container of fudge. “Don't you damn well know how to take no for an answer?”

“No he doesn’t.” Said a voice from behind him, and Charles came to stand beside him, his hand brushing Erik’s back as he did. “He’s not even been here five minutes, Kurt. He has an honest pitch, just let the man present it.”

Kurt looked between the pair of them, narrowing his eyes. “Give me one reason why I should.”

“I’ll go.” Said Erik, squaring his shoulders. “If you try them and you don’t like them, I’ll leave without a word. If you do like them, you produce them.”

“And what happens if I produce them and nobody wants them, hmm? What happens if they don’t sell? What do I do then?”

“I’ll take responsibility.” Charles said, stepping up next to Erik, and Erik could feel Charles’s hand rub against his back. He glanced at Charles, only to see the side of his face, the younger man looking resolutely at Kurt.

“You will?” Erik asked, voice soft, and Charles looked at him with a smile that could keep him going through the deepest, darkest winter.

“I will.”  
Charles had him entranced, and for the life of him he couldn’t look away. He had to, though, when Kurt snatched the paper bag out of his hand and took a sweet, holding it up to his lips. The pair of them watched with bated breath as Kurt sucked in a breath and blew out, a squeaky whistle coming from the sweet.

He chuckled once. And then again, and again, until he was whistling and guffawing, and Erik couldn’t help himself from joining in, and a glance down at Charles showed that he was laughing too, his blue eyes twinkling in mirth as he gave Erik a dazzling grin, and he could practically see the children’s faces when he told them he was going to be able to buy them their car.

Kurt calmed his laughing and opened his mouth to speak, and slapped the willowy girl on the back in glee, but she lost her balance, and she was falling backwards into a huge steel barrel of marshmallow, but before it could tip, Erik caught it with a clench of his fist and righted it, marshmallow slopping back into the safety of the container before it hit the floor. As he lowered his hand, he noticed it had suddenly gone extremely quiet, and Kurt was fuming.

“Was this a joke, Charles?” He spat, stepping closer to his stepson in three long strides until Charles had no other option to look at him, and Kurt grabbed his arm just to make sure he was. “Was this a way to get your kicks, eh? Bringing you little mutie friend here to rinse me dry? Make a fool out of me?”

Charles didn’t back down for a second, kept his chin tipped high and his eyes hard. “Kurt-”

“What were you going to do, Charlie? Going to wiggle around in here when I said no?” Kurt seethed, waggling his porky fingers at his temple, the fingers of his other hand squeezing harder at Charles’s bicep, forceful enough to bruise. 

“Let him go.” Erik warned, stepping closer.

“Aww, what’s this Charlie?” Kurt taunted, and Erik could see Charles was biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. “Need defending, do we? I didn’t take you for a poor man’s whore.”

All the metal in the room started to shake, and Erik took a hold of the gaudy ring on Kurt’s middle finger and gave it a vicious tug. He stepped even closer, gripping Charles around the waist to pull him closer, out of Kurt’s grip, and his voice was as low and grievous as smoke. “I said, let him go.”

Kurt quickly released Charles’s arm, his eyes full of something close to fearful disgust, and Erik would have no problems in ripping them out of his sockets, but it was Charles’s hand on his chest that stopped him from putting the fear of Erik Lehnsherr into Kurt Marko.

“Erik, darling, calm your mind.” Charles murmured, and Erik tore his gaze from Kurt to the man in front of him and he felt his anger dissipate. “Come on, let’s go.”

It wasn’t until he was back in the foyer, his children hugging him and Betsy’s untrusting gaze following him, that he felt like he could breathe again.

“Erik, my friend-” Charles began, looking balefully at him, but Erik cut him off with a quick squeeze of his wrist.

“Don’t, Charles.” He sighed, his voice more resigned than he wanted it to sound, but he really couldn’t find it in himself to care, and he hoisted Wanda up onto his hip to stop himself from running his fingers through Charles’s hair until that miserable look melted off his face. He offered him a smile instead. “It’s not your fault.”

And Erik absolutely believed it, even as he sat at the cheapest bar in town, halfway through a bottle of whisky, wondering if he should chance the last of his meagre amount of spare change at the card table, and it was only the thought of what his mother would have to say about his sorry state that made him leave the bar altogether. Instead he went to the hardware shop next door, bought a box of ball bearings, and sat on the pavement, only realising afterwards that he was sat at the entrance of a fun fair. The shrill twinkling of the carousel and the putrid smell of potatoes fried in grease did little for his headache or his stomach, but he had no energy to move. He had to go back soon anyways, and relieve Azazel of his babysitting duties. But first, he was more than happy to sit and mope. 

Just as he was in the middle of melding five of the steel balls together, a young boy, not much younger than Pietro, stood and watched him. His hair was dark where Pietro’s was almost white, and he was short and plump where Pietro had the beginnings of being lanky, but the one thing that was similar between them both was the way they watched Erik wield metal, enraptured and enthralled. It always played to Erik’s ego, but more than anything, he was happy to see that someone wasn’t disgusted by his talents for once, even if it was just a little boy.

Smiling softly, he started to shape the metal into a more discernible shape, floating another two ball bearings out of the box to add to the growing sculpture, and Erik only looked up as the boy called his mother over to watch, and she oohed and ahhed as he worked. By the time he had finished the miniature sculpture, he had gathered a small crowd, and he turned the small metal giraffe around, hovering over his palm, and held it out for the boy to take, and he grinned, showing it proudly to his mother.

“How much for the toy?” She asked with a polite smile as her son inspected his handiwork.

“I’m sorry?” Erik asked, brow knitted both in confusion and with the effort to not sound too slurred.

“For the giraffe. You are selling them, aren’t you.”  
Suddenly, Erik was hit with an idea, and he let a smile tug at his lips. “Two shillings?”

After the woman paid him and left, the crowd started to queue up, asking Erik to make all kinds of things and he quickly sobered up, putting his hands and his ball bearings to good use, and he soon had to lay his flat cap on the ground in front of him to hold all the money when his pockets became too full, and that seemed to be the second best idea of the night, as people who watched him work but didn’t buy anything tipped him, adding to the growing mountain of coins in his hat.

A few hours and two boxes of ball bearings later, as the morning sun started to rise, Erik marched towards home with over double the money he’d needed to make, but not before making a pit stop at Logan’s scrap yard to buy the car the children played with. He then worked through the night, not stopping to eat or talk when Azazel pestered him. He worked through that night as well, soldering and welding and rewiring and, when he opened the garage door the next morning to show Wanda and Pietro the car, he’d say it was the exhaustion that made him hide his tears in their hair. Definitely the exhaustion. 


	4. Chapter 4

The car, in the end, was a thing of beauty. Erik had poured everything he knew about metal into fixing it up, and it showed, the chrome and steel exterior shining in the sun. Red leather, courtesy of an old sofa he found in the back of the barn adorned the newly upholstered seats, and the wood accents on the bonnet and the dashboard were polished within an inch of their lives, and you never would’ve guessed they used to be slats in an old bed. What’s more, when Erik turned the key, the engine sang, every turn of the axl and every grind of a gear felt like velvet against Erik’s powers, and he found that he didn’t even need to actively drive it, his mutation working seamlessly in tandem with the automobile, but he kept his hands on the wheel and his foot on the clutch anyway, revelling in the power of the machine.

“Where shall we go for our picnic, then?” He asked, grinning Wanda and Pietro, who had both crammed themselves into the front on the bench seat so they could mess with the dials on the wireless radio he had installed in the front. He had been more than happy to indulge their want to drive around in the newly refurbished car, but once Wanda had the idea of a picnic in her head, he was hard pressed to get it out, but it’s not like he minded at all. “Anywhere you want.”

“Ooh, can we go to the beach?” Pietro asked, and Wanda loudly whooped her enthusiastic agreement, and Erik chuckled as the pair of them made grand plans about sandcastles and ice creams. It had been so long since they had gone out like this as a family that Erik couldn’t help but sneak glances at the pair of them, trusting his powers to keep the car moving safely as he coveted the sight of his children smiling and chattering away amongst themselves. Besides, it was a glorious day, Erik had already shed his jumper, leaving him in his button up shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows so he could feel the warmth of the sun on his arms.

He must have been putting too much faith in his mutation, as Wanda was suddenly yelling “Look out!”, and he had just enough time to swerve to avoid hitting another car, which swerved as well, and ended up driving into the lake beside them.

The driver removed their hat, whipping around to berate whoever had driven them off the road, but their thunderous face softened when they saw who was in the car, and Charles grinned brightly at the family of three and called to them: “We’ve got to stop meeting like this!”

“The horn’s there for a reason, Xavier!” Erik yelled back, intending to sound irritated but he couldn’t keep the smile out of his voice, and when Charles threw his head back and laughed, he couldn't keep it off his face either. 

“Stop being so facetious and come and help me out!”

Erik rolled his eyes and jumped out of the car and waded his way into the lake, the cold water lapping at his ankles, and held out a hand for Charles to jump down next to him.

“Well you don’t expect me to get wet, do you?” Charles balked, and Erik quirked an eyebrow in response. Sticking out one of his legs, Charles gestured at his shoe and sulked, his bottom lip jutting out. “But they’re new.”

With a grumbled ‘spoilt’ that Erik found himself meaning only a little bit, he slid an arm under Charles’s knees and rested the other against his back and lifted him, smirking as Charles squawked and flung his arms around Erik’s neck to stop himself from toppling into the water. 

“You could’ve at least taken me to dinner first.” Charles grumbled as he brushed down his waistcoat (pale purple today) and fixed his hair, and Erik tried to hide the fact his ears were turning pink as he walked back out of the water.

“Don’t flatter yourself.” He grumbled as he put Charles down and turned towards the car, leaving the telepath to fix himself up and sitting back behind the driver’s seat.

“We’re going to the beach!” Wanda exclaimed as Charles strolled over to say hello, and if the tingly, lucid feeling in his head was anything to go by, Erik would hazard a guess that Charles was unknowingly broadcasting his joy at her enthusiasm.

“You are?” He asked, nodding along as she talked about her picnic and the fish in the rockpools and doing handstands underwater. “It’s been so long since I’ve been, I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time.”

“Then come with us.” Pietro exclaimed, and Wanda soon cheered her agreement at the notion. Erik felt like he should mind that his children want a virtual stranger to come with them, to impede on their family time. He felt he should be coveting his children all to himself, and pushing this man out before he took the children from him. He found, however, that he didn't want to begrudge the children of Charles. He found he didn’t want to begrudge himself, either, so tentatively pushed his mental agreement out towards Charles, like holding a handful of seeds out for a skittish bird, and Erik felt Charles’s mind accept the offering, brushing mental fingertips over it before tucking it away, turning to Erik with a bright smile.

“Room for a little one?”

And that is how Erik found himself suppressing a smug smile as Charles poured over the car, unable to find himself minding as their families usual companionable silence was broken by Charles chattering away to the children, the three of them waxing poetic about the beach and discussing something the children had learnt at school and, as the children were still ridiculously excited about it, the car.

“And we’ve thought of a name.” Wanda said, her and her brother having explained to Erik earlier that day the importance of a car having a name, and how rude it was not to refer to it by it’s proper moniker. They both now sat in the backseat while Charles rode up front, and Erik watched as Wanda sneaked a jam tart from the picnic basket. Erik gave her a stern look in the wing mirror as he caught her taking it out and breaking it in half, giving the other piece to Charles, and he had to hold back a chuckle as the pair of them looked cheekily compunctious. 

“Oh?” Erik asked, itching to tell Wanda not to wipe her hands on the seat. “And what have you named it?”

Wanda turned to her brother and nodded, and the both of them spoke together. “Magneto.”

Charles whooped a laugh, hiding his grin behind his hand. “What a peculiar name. What made you come up with that?”

“Because the car’s neat.” Pietro shrugged, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“And what about the ‘Mag’ part? What does that mean?” Erik asked, breaking his gaze on the road to look up at them in the wing mirror.

“After mummy, of course.” Wanda said, and Erik’s hand tensed where it sat on the gearstick, and not for the first time, Erik’s heart bled for his children. They had caught him off guard, and he felt the habitual stinging at the corner of his eyes. The chasm of hurt and loneliness in his chest that he had tried so valiantly to fill was threatening to split open even further, but he refused to let it, instead clinging onto the warmth that suddenly flooded his mind, holding onto it and finding rare comfort, much like a child with a blanket. It was only as the memories of pain and illness and despair faded into the distance, packing themselves away into their respective cerebral compartments, that he realised that warmth was Charles, lingering at the forefront of his mind like he wasn’t sure if he would be welcomed in. Every sinew in Erik’s body, every nerve ending, the marrow of his bones, told him to close the door, to not let Charles in, to politely keep his distance and stop whatever was happening before it went any further than this. But Erik knew he didn’t want that. Erik knew, that for however long this odd companionship would last, Erik would always let Charles in. He wasn’t stupid, he knew he had nothing to offer the heir of the Xavier estate, knew he was nothing more than a poor inventor with holes in his heart and holes in his shoes, yet he couldn’t help but yearn for something more. No, he knows his limits, knows that when the time comes to pull back, he will, for the children if not for himself. For now, though, he wanted the comfort, so he allowed Charles to settle in his consciousness, feeling the sunbeam warmth of his mind breathing life into the dark corners of his mind, and let Charles rest his hand on top of Erik’s on the gearstick. Charles was looking away from him, but if the heaving of his chest was anything to go by, he was just as nervous as Erik. So Erik tangled their fingers together, keeping their hands joined, revelling in the small victory of watching Charles hide his smile in his fist as the wind whipped his hair around his head.

The four of them spent the rest of the trip in silence, and Charles’s hand stayed where it was.

Erik only realised how underprepared they all were for an outing at the beach when he accidentally stood in the sand in his socks as he took off his shoes. The children had quickly stripped to their underthings and ran straight for the sea, quickly shouting for Charles and Erik to join them. Feeling giddier than he had in a long time, Erik quickly took off his sand ridden socks and unbuttoned his shirt, stripping it off and throwing it blindly into the backseat of the car, very aware of Charles’s gaze on him and his scandalised squeak as he unbuttoned his trousers and sucked them down his legs, letting them join his shirt. Charles’s face was a picture when Erik glanced at him over his shoulder, scarlet, with his blue eyes looking absolutely anywhere but Erik. Erik grinned, before running down into the sea, yelling and whooping the whole time before entering the water with a splash, swimming after his children as they laughed and screamed.

It didn’t take long for Charles to join them, having removed his socks, shoes and waistcoat and rolling his trousers up to his knees. He only ventured in until the water hit mid calf, but he wasn’t averse to leaning over to splashing water at the three of them, shrieking as the three of them splashed back together, sending a miniature tidal wave towards the telepath, soaking his shirt right through. 

They stayed in the sea for the better part of an hour before settling down to eat their picnic, deciding to perfunctionarily dry themselves with the picnic blanket and shake the most of the sand off and eat in the car, and as soon as they were done, Wanda and Pietro were off again, climbing the rocks in Erik’s line of sight and collecting shells for their sandcastles. “Bastards.” Erik muttered upon realising the pair had buggered off to avoid cleaning up, but the humour in his voice was clear and Charles chuckled. They efficiently cleared everything away, but they left the glass bottle of lemonade and a punnet of strawberries between them.

They chatted idly for a while as the children played, and the conversation soon turned to mutations.

“And neither have manifested yet?” Charles asked, nibbling at another strawberry.

Erik shook his head. “We’d considered the colour of Pietro’s hair to be his main mutation, seeing as he never showed signs of anything else, but he’s a fast runner. Abnormally fast, sometimes, so I’m holding out hope.”   
Charles hummed. “And Wanda?”

Erik shook his head, taking a sip of the lemonade. “Nothing, and at this rate I’m starting to doubt they ever will.”

“It’s not uncommon.” Charles said through a mouthful of strawberry. “Physical mutations are clearly present from birth. My sister, for example, is a shapeshifter, but blue in her natural form and always has been. But other mutations, telekinesis, enhanced strength or speed, elemental control, they can manifest at any stage throughout puberty, and into adulthood in some cases. It’s mainly psionics that manifest earlier. I think I was nearing on eight when my telepathy made itself known.”

Erik couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to read minds at such a young age, completely aware of everything happening around you, privy to thoughts that you shouldn’t be privy to. Manifesting in itself is not easy, and Erik can remember the sleepless nights as metal called out to him, screaming at him while he tried to sleep, him warping the cutlery when he felt too strongly, accidentally burning his mother with her wedding ring, his power out of control while he shook with anger at more mutantphobia in the newspapers. But Erik was near enough thirteen. He can remember a time when he didn’t feel metal, Charles probably can’t remember not reading minds. He finds now that he has a grudging respect for Charles Xavier, but all he says is, “That must’ve been hard for you.”

Something dark flashes over Charles’s face, something Erik would be quite happy never seeing again, but it’s gone as quickly as it came, a tight smile replacing it. “I have no problems with my telepathy any more, my friend. In fact, it’s other people who seem to have a problem with it.”

Erik thinks back to the way he reacted when Charles revealed he was a telepath and cringes, only seeing now how tactless of him it was, how the quick anger on Charles’s face merged into tired resignation, as if it wasn’t the first, and wouldn’t be the last time this happened. 

Erik’s mouth bobbed open and closed, sentences growing and dying on his tongue as he tried to find words to express his foolishness, how he wanted Charles to be unapologetic with his powers like Erik himself was and would encourage his children to be, but he couldn’t find them, slipping through his fingers like the sand in his socks. So instead, after what was probably a very uncomfortable silence for Charles, Erik took his hand, which was currently reaching for another strawberry, and brought it up to his head, holding Charles’s middle and forefinger against his temple. Charles was slack jawed, his eyes hesitant, but Erik sent him his affirmation, a feeling of  _ come, you’re safe here, please be welcome here,  _ and, once he felt Charles shuffle through the door into his mind, pushed at him the way he felt about Charles’s mutation, how he was surprised at first, not disgusted, his respect for his control, the fact he knows implicitly that Charles will respect his privacy. Charles’s eyes had fallen shut, and at some point, so had Erik’s. He doesn’t know how long they stayed like that, the movie reel of emotions in Erik’s head fizzling and fading to black before they just stayed there, content to be sharing the same physical and mental space, Charles familiarising himself with Erik’s mind. Minutes, or maybe hours later, Charles started to pull away, Erik’s mind already cold without him, but Erik squeezed his wrist and some of the warmth came back, Charles staying right at the edge of his consciousness. He pulled his hand back, though, and Erik opened his eyes to watch him, his lips stained with strawberries and eyelids fluttering open to reveal eyes as blue and as clear as the ocean behind him, and they were closer now than they were before, Erik could feel Charles’s breath hit his face, and they were leaning ever closer, the still damp material of Charles’s shirt blowing against Erik’s bare chest in the breeze, and if Erik tilted his head, pushed forwards just an inch, tilted his face just so-

“Vati!”

They jumped apart, Erik immediately clutching the wheel, steadying his breathing, while Charles’s hands covered his cheeks, half hiding and half feeling his blush.

Wanda and Pietro came bounding over, shaking the sand off their feet before jumping up into the car, telling him something about shells, but Erik couldn’t focus, hyper aware of the fact that Charles was sitting so close to him, their minds still interlinked.

“Getting tired, then?” Erik asked, hoping the children would think the shake in his voice was from the chill of the incoming evening.

They chattered away again, pulling on their clothes, and Erik hopped out of the car to do the same, pulling up his trousers and buttoning up his shirt before slipping back into his shoes. He chanced a glance at Charles, who was talking away to Wanda and Pietro, but shivering, and Erik could see that his white shirt was still transparent with water. Before he could think better of it, he was rooting around under his seat and pulling out the jumper he had discarded earlier in the day. Before he could talk himself out of it, Erik held the jumper out to Charles, who took it with something akin to hesitance, and Erik turned away as he removed his wet shirt, folding it haphazardly before pulling it on, messing up his hair in the process, and ignored the way Charles took a deep inhale of the soft, emerald wool. He was probably wondering why it smelt of tempered steel.

“Will you tell us a story Vati?” Wanda asked through a yawn.

“You’re not ready to go to bed?” Erik asked, slipping back into the drivers seat.

She shook her head, curling up against the leather seat. “Don’t wanna go yet.”

Erik hummed, shifting in his seat, very aware of the three sets of eyes that had fallen on him. “Did I ever tell you about Captain Shaw?”

It had been a long time since Erik even dared to utter the mans name, lest it dragged up the rage he’d been trying to abate for the sake of his children. The man had taken Erik on in the navy when he was just a boy, promised to give him a career and a life and a way to support his mother back on land. He educated Erik, putting him through the best schools in Germany, with the promise that Erik could repay him as he worked, indentured aboard the Caspartina for however long it took for Erik to pay back his loans. Shaw encouraged him to use his power, to cultivate it, to let it flow through his body like the blood in his veins, and with his ability to manipulate weapons and cannonballs and silver coins, Erik helped Shaw prosper, until the Caspartina was one of the most feared ships in all of the seven seas. Of course, Erik felt a sense of duty by him, the man who had pulled him and his mother from the gutter and gave him a chance, a father figure in the space left by his own father’s death. That was, of course, until Shaw turned, demanding his money all at once, ignoring Erik’s pleas to carry on with their arrangement, to give him more every month. This wouldn’t do for Shaw, however, who decided if Erik couldn’t pay with money, he’d pay with his mother’s life. Erik felt numb as he ripped the Caspartina apart, taking whatever gold he could find and fled to England. It was on the ship to Dover that he, of course, met Magda.

This, however, is not the story Erik told them. The tale Erik spun was based on rumours he overheard during his last voyage, the one he took before the twins were born, whispers that Shaw was now living on the island of Genosha, just off the coast of the Netherlands, ruling over their people after marrying their Queen. It was whispered below the deck of the ship that Shaw had found more mutants on this small island, more than he had met in his life, and had locked them all away, jealous that his power was being matched, and he had even locked himself out of this telepathic Queen’s mind. There were other rumours of course, tales of torture at the hands of King Shaw, but Erik kept those to himself. As much as his children loved stories of pirates and swords, he felt the darker tales that swam from the shores of Genosha were best left to himself.

As he told the story, so focused on keeping his rage at bay, he didn’t notice Charles and the children scrambling to look over the edge of the car, nor did he register Charles hitting his arm until his jabs were near bruising.

“Erik, oh for God’s sake, Erik look!”

Erik frowned, Charles’s shouts bringing his mind back to the present, but the panic set in when he realised the tide was steadily rising around them, even as far back as they were parked, and was slowly getting higher and higher.

“Vati, Vati what’s happening?” Pietro asked, his voice shaking as he watched the water rise, and he clutched his arm around Wanda.

“I- I don’t-” He had heard of extreme rising tides that would sweep up whole beaches, yes, but not  _ here,  _ it shouldn’t be happening  _ now. _ Looking out across the vast rising ocean, he caught something moving across the horizon, too small for the untrained eye to properly make out, but Erik knew, and his heart plummeted into his stomach as the thought took hold in his mind, a flash of magenta sails all but confirming it.

“It’s him.” He uttered, his voice quiet and strained, and he knew his mind and his face relayed his horror to Charles, who caught Erik‘s arm in his hand. “He’s here.”

“Erik, darling, who is it, who’s here-”

He said nothing, but showed Charles instead, the rage Shaw’s name flooded him with, the day he brought the Caspartina down, burning the fuschia sails. Charles’s hitched breath fell on deaf ears, and he immediately set to calming the children, settling them into their seats in the back, asking Erik if they should swim for it. It took Erik a second, only coming back to himself when Charles placed a hand on his arm again, but he knew exactly what to do, and he thanked whatever heaven there was that he wanted to show off with this car.

“No.” He shook his head, before turning to them all, his voice steadier than he felt. “No, just, stay sat down and hold on to anything you can.”

He turned to Charles, who simply nodded, and that was all Erik needed before he flipped a switch on the dashboard and pulled the throttle lever and, just like he had hoped, the wheels pulled up and in, back into the car, and they were replaced by the tarpaulin and rubber boat he had found in the barn, inflated fully to keep them afloat in the water, and he slumped back against his seat, a relieved laugh escaping past his lips as Charles, Pietro and Wanda leaned over the side of the car. The children screamed and cheered, unable to believe that their  _ car  _ was a  _ boat,  _ and Charles looked at him, half in wonder and half in exasperation, but it was the latter than won out.

“You put a boat in your car?!” His eyes were wide and his face flushed, and if Erik had to guess, he’d say he was a bit hysterical. “What kind of a madman puts a boat in his car!”

“I was bored.” Erik snapped as he turned the ignition. “And I can’t see why you’re complaining.”

Charles huffed, still murmuring under his breath about ‘bloody eccentrics’ and ‘showing off’, but Erik could feel Charles’s trust in him glowing bright in his mind, and so with that, he drove, managing to steer the car back to shore, where the boat deflated and the wheels extended once more, and then they were driving. 

Erik speeded, cutting corners with a reckless accuracy that had Charles gripping the dashboard and the children gripping each other, but there was no time to stop, not if Shaw was tailing them. Erik was sure they had passed at least three policemen, and he was shocked there had been nobody injured as he careened around corners ad zipped through villages, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Charles with two fingers to his temple, and it was no wonder. Letting his gratitude flow through the mental connection between them, Erik sped up as they neared home, only slowing as he pulled up to the house.

His house, that was swarming with officers in Genoshan colours, tying Azazel’s arms behind his back and closing a suppression collar around his neck, before bundling him into- into a blimp? and floating off. 

“Vati what’s happening?” Wanda cried.

“What are they doing with Uncle Az?”

“I have no idea.” Erik wasted no time, speeding back up as he followed the aircraft, speeding in the opposite direction they came from. “But I’m going to find out.”

Erik tried to gather his bearings as he went, tried to figure out where they were going, and after an hour of chasing them, Erik cursed, the realisation dawning on him as he smelled the salt in the air, felt the minerals in the cliff side calling out to him.

“Charles,” he said, taking his eyes off the road for only a second to find Charles alert next to him. “Charles is there any way you can make my mutation stronger with your telepathy? Can you try to, I don’t know, magnify it?”

“I-I well, yes, I mean-” Charles floundered, “exponentially, maybe, but- Erik your mind is in no state for me to go searching through, you need to calm it.”

And hell, Erik’s only been trying to do that for the past twenty years. “Then help me. Help me calm down.”

He grabbed blindly for Charles’s hand and brought his fingers up to his temple again, his eyes not leaving the road as he felt Charles enter. And then, there was his mother and the glimmering lights of the menorah, and then he could feel possibly all the metal in the  _ world,  _ and he was laughing, and maybe crying-

And then he was driving off the cliff.


	5. Chapter 5

Charles had felt like he was flying once before. He was twelve, the ink on the Marko’s marriage licence only just dried, and his stepbrother had pushed him and he fell, freewheeling like a Catherine wheel down the main staircase in Westchester. At first, he felt a sick lurch in his gut as he felt a pair of meaty hands make contact with his back, but after the first second, everything began to feel light, and for once, the voices in his head stopped as he tried to gather which way was up and which way was down. Not exactly pleasant, mind you, but not at all bad either. It felt, in a cruel way, liberating. To be so out of control for once in his young life, to not have to keep such a tight grip on his surroundings as he let gravity serve its course. It was, in a word, elation. Elation and fear and weightlessness, and it settled over him like the fog in early November. He let it consume him, for those blissful few seconds, and he found himself cruelly at peace with the world.

That was of course, until he hit the bottom step with a sickening crunch, because, as the laws of gravity dictate, what goes up, at some point or another, must come back down.

Which is why, as Charles clung to the bright beacon of Erik’s mind, muttering prayers despite his fickle relationship with the God that took his father from him, he braced for impact, ready to rip the pain and suffering from Wanda and Pietro’s minds as they met their inevitable end with the jagged rocks that guarded the bottom of the cliff.

That end, however, never came.

Prying one eye open, despite its very firm want to stay closed, Charles had to fight off hysteria because- because, well. They were flying.

An unhinged chuckle bled past the open seam of Charles’s lips, and he felt the relief flood him in violent waves, dousing him at once in the ice cold balm of not being dead just quite yet. He must have picked up some residual relief from the twins in the back seat, and he reached out his hand behind him for the twins to grab as they sobbed out the last of their terror. 

Not once did he take his eyes off Erik as he projected comfort onto the twins, lest, in the few seconds he looked away, he treacherous brain forgot the sight of him; eyes closed, fingers spread and palms facing down over the steering wheel, tendons in his neck straining, made visible by the open collar of his shirt. In the back of his mind, he could feel Erik’s worry, for the children and, a foolish part of Charles rejoiced, Charles. So, he projected quiet reassurance, adjusting his grip on the brightest point of Erik’s consciousness, and clutched the twin’s hands tighter, sending them gentle waves of lavender and moonbeams, lulling them off into a gentle sleep. Charles, however, settled in for the night, tucking his legs under him on the leather seat, leaning his back against the car door and he let his head rest on the back of his seat, and never tore his gaze from Erik, unable to and with no desire to either, especially not when Erik couldn’t see him looking.

Perhaps another hour or two passed before Erik fully came back to himself, or perhaps it was five minutes, Charles couldn’t tell, but when he did it was with a gasp and with a lingering surge of panic.

“Careful, careful.” Charles soothed as the car rocked, brushing a hand down Erik’s back to calm him, and it seemed to work, as the car levelled back once more.

Erik sighed, looking just as exhausted as Charles knew he was, scrubbing a hand over his face, as if the simple action would restore the life in him.

“Are they both alright?” Erik rasped after a second, turning to watch the twins.

“They’re both fine. I thought it’d be best if- if I encouraged them both to sleep.” The fact he did so with his telepathy went unsaid. “I hope you don’t mind.”

Erik nodded, and if he did indeed mind, he didn’t say so, barely cognizant enough to keep up their conversation, let alone argue. Silence swelled between them once more, though Charles found not awkwardly, and he took a sip of the lemonade they had shared at the beach, finishing off the bottle, and he winced as it hit his tongue and he realised it had gone flat.

“Is it not heavy?” Charles asked, nodding at the dashboard to show he was talking about the car as he screwed back onto the bottle. “Not straining?”

Erik didn’t reply at once, and Charles could feel him considering his answer in his head, passing it from mental hand to mental hand in contemplation. “Not exactly.” Erik settled on. “It’s not exactly like lifting an object with my hands. I’m less carrying the car, more controlling the magnetic fields around it. I’ve done it before with smaller objects, tools and engines and such, but never with something this big.I probably wouldn’t have been able to without you…”

Charles didn’t want to examine the way Erik was looking at him then, apparently caught up in his own mental monologue, and Charles didn’t intrude. Shaking his head, Erik seemed to remember the subject of their conversation and seamlessly continued, and Charles found himself wondering, not for the first time, just what he was thinking. “It’s taxing, though. I have to stay focused to keep the fields around the car stable, but I’ve linked us to the ones surrounding the airship, so it should direct us without much trouble.”

Looking at him now, properly, Charles saw how exhausted Erik was, the bags under his eyes looking deeper in the pearly wash of the moonlight, lines around them deeper than they had ever seemed. If only Charles could help him rest…

“I can help. If you’d like, I mean.” Charles blurted. “I can keep an eye on the part of your brain that controls your mutation, make sure it stays active. You said yourself you don’t need to direct it. That way you can rest for a while.”   


Erik furrowed a brow. “But what about you?”   


“Ah,” Charles chuckled, albeit weakly, tapping his temple. “Can’t sleep where it’s uncomfortable. There’s too many unfamiliar minds for me to settle down, but I can go longer than the average person without sleep. Please Erik,” Charles implored, voice softening as he reached for Erik’s hand and squeezed. “Please rest.”

After an impossibly long minute, Erik finally nodded and made himself comfortable against the leather seat. And then, as Charles settles his fingers against Erik’s temple, as he braced himself to submerge himself in Erik’s brain once again, he felt the metal bender extend a mental hand and draw Charles in, holding on as Charles found the place his mutation lived, as bright and gleaming and hard as polished steel, and settled in for the night. He felt Erik sag, perhaps in relief, and Charles smiled, pulling his hand away from Erik’s face, but Erik clung on. Keeping his eyes closed, perhaps so Charles couldn’t see him, or he couldn’t see Charles, he placed Charles’s hand in his hair and, fighting his rising disbelief and fondness, Charles raked his fingers through Erik’s hair. Both of them sighed, peace and contentment enveloping them both like a blanket, and neither of them felt the cold of the night.

Charles’s hand stayed where it was and Erik stayed asleep for the rest of the journey, until it was time for them to make their descent into Genosha. 

Surprisingly, they had no problems touching down in Genosha, but from what Charles had gleaned, it was only a matter of time before someone came looking. Still, Erik landed the car easily enough in the darkness, hiding it in an old garage just outside the centre of time, pulling down the garage shutter and welding it shut, lest anyone should find it and know they were here. They walked the rest of the short way into town on foot, Pietro’s hand in Erik’s and Wanda’s in Charles’s, and Charles hoped that they could blend easily enough into the background.

This, however, didn’t seem to be a problem, as when they walked down the main road, the place was completely empty, the occasional slam of shutters being pulled closed as they passed the only signs that there was life in the town.

Charles looked over at Erik, who looked back with a wary expression on his face, and just like himself, Charles could tell that Erik didn’t like this one bit. Steeling himself with a sigh, Charles reached out his telepathy, finding the nearest mind, hoping he could find something useful-

“Are you out of your mind?” Came a half whispered, half scolding voice came from somewhere on Charles’s left, and all four of their heads whipped around to face a woman, thirty at the oldest, with her auburn hair fashioned into a bob, holding a hand to her head with a pained expression on her face. “Don’t do that, just-” she whipped her head around, looking up and down the street before casting a glance at the shuttered windows above them, before motioning for them to follow, retreating back through the door she had come out of.

Charles looked back at Erik, who was staring after the woman with something close to disdain before looking back at Charles, his trepidation clear as day. Charles hadn’t felt anything malicious when he had swept the woman’s mind, and both of them knew that Charles could handle the woman if she decided to get hostile all of a sudden.

“We don’t have much more of a choice.” Charles said, keeping his voice soft, and some of the tension in his shoulders eased as Erik sighed and nodded.

“After you.” 

And so Charles followed the woman, keeping a mental eye on her and their surroundings as he did, hoping that he wasn’t making a mistake.

Moira, as the woman turned out to be called, had been stationed in Genosha by an American federal agency to monitor Shaw after some shady dealings in Miami, and had spent the past year posing as a toy maker in the village, creating toys as Shaw requested, which allowed her to keep tabs on him inside the gaudy palace he resided in.

“It’s not a total bore,” she smirked over the rim of her glass, eyes bright and mischievous. “And lets just say it was worth the scandal of taking those woodwork classes.”   
Charles, all in all, quite liked Moira. She had, eventually, allowed him to observe his surface thoughts, more for the sake of seeing if she was telling them the truth, yet despite this blatant show of trust, Erik remained wary. Yet despite not fully trusting her, he couldn’t hide his grudging respect.

“So how come you told Charles to reel in his telepathy?” Erik asked over his third glass of whisky. Moira had led them to the basement of the toy shop, letting Wanda and Pietro doze amongst the sea of stuffed animals while the three of them shared a bottle of brandy and swapped facts on Shaw. “Surely Shaw is far enough away for Charles using his mutation to be safe?”   
Moira shook her head. “Shaw has eyes and ears everywhere, a network of loyal baselines he calls the Hellfire Club. They keep track of who comes in and out of town, if anyone looks suspicious enough to be a mutant.”

Charles caught the back end of Moira’s thought, but it was enough to send a bolt of dread through him. “Pietro’s hair…”

Erik’s hand tensed into a fist, and Charles could see the fear in his eyes, the tense line of his jaw clenching and unclenching. Charles dropped his hand to Erik’s thigh, a hands breadth from his knee when he spoke, his voice tight and cold as flint. “They wouldn’t-”

“No,” Moira quickly interrupted. “It was too dark to see anything properly, but the point is that I think it’s best if the children stay hidden down here, lest they draw any attention to themselves.”

Erik relaxed, if only slightly, and his eyes shifted from fear into unabashed skepticism, and Charles had to squeeze his leg to remind Erik not to shout. “Why exactly are you helping us?”

Humans, Charles had found, had not been kind to Erik over the course of his life, for reasons he doesn’t exactly know, but knows better than to ask about. Moira was no exception, and even Charles had to admit that, without the brief flashes into her mind, Charles would’ve felt exactly the same way. But still, however warranted Erik’s reluctance to trust is, his children were still sleeping a few feet away, and it’d be best if the neighbours weren’t alerted to their presence, so inside voices were to be maintained.

Moira downed the rest of her brandy in one gulp, a smirk playing on her lips. “I have enough evidence on Shaw to bring him into custody, and while the selfish part of me wants the promotion stopping Shaw will give me, I’ve seen what he does to other mutants, and it’s-” She took a second to consider her wording, a sad smile replacing the smirk. “It’s inhumane.”

Erik smiled at that, the respect becoming a little less grudging and a little more sincere.

“But what Azazel?” Charles asked, the other two pairs of eyes in the room falling to him. “Why would Shaw take him?”

“To get him to work for him,” Moira shrugged, pushing the cork back in the brandy bottle. “Or maybe to get to you.”

The look she gave Erik was pointed to say the least, but she had the foresight not to pry, to not ask for anything more than the watered down events that Erik had told her, and Charles squeezed his thigh once more before moving his hand away. Erik, however, caught it between one of his own, gave his own small squeeze back before letting go, giving Moira a hand by collecting their glasses.

“I have a plan to get you to your friend and me to Shaw, but for now,” she said having cleaned up, and she pulled aside a curtain to display an old double bed, clearly unused for some time, but clean, and there was very pointedly only one of them, and if the bolt of amusement that flashed bright in Moira’s mind, she very much knew this, “we sleep. And we get  _ you, _ ” she waved a finger at the lilac waistcoat Charles had dragged in from the car, “some civvy clothes.”

And with that, Moira was gone, disappearing through a hatch in the ceiling of the basement.

“Well she was,” Charles paused, “nice?”

Chuckling, Erik nudged Charles’s shoulder with his own. “Come on. You need some rest.”

Sharing a double bed didn’t seem like such a problem until the time came to actually get in it. Moira had left them some clothes to sleep in, which thankfully left them in an uncompromising position, but as Charles slipped under the covers, Erik following him, Charles realised how small the bed was, how chilly the Genoshan night was, and how warm Erik was. He stayed resolutely on his back on his side of the bed, holding his breath while Erik shifted about. Exhaling through his nose when Erik finally got comfortable, Charles tried his best not to touch him, clasping his arms over his waist as he stared up at the ceiling, absolutely not thinking about Erik’s warmth or the fact his foot was brushing Charles’s ankle under the covers or the fact that if he just reached over he could bush his fingers against him...

He quickly nipped the thought in the bud, shifting so he was on his side facing away from Erik, just a few inches between his back and Erik’s front. Cold seeped through the spaces in the quilt, filling the cavernous space between them, making Charles shiver. He stopped when Erik shifted closer, still not touching him, but he might as well have been, for the space between them was almost non existent, just a sliver of distance Charles ached to breach. 

“Stop thinking.” he grumbled, breath hitting the back of Charles’s neck, making him shiver. 

“Sorry.” Charles whispered back, breathing in time with Erik, physically stopping himself from leaning back into the embrace.

“Goodnight.” Erik breathed into the space behind Charles’s ear, and Charles didn’t know if there really was a hand brushing his waist, or if the exhaustion had finally caught up to him, making him delirious. Before Charles could figure it out, though, he was asleep.

When he woke up, the bed beside him was cold and Erik was gone. Wanda and Pietro were awake, having already been told by Erik that they needed to stay in the basement until they got Azazel back. It’s not like they minded, not with a whole room full of toys to play with, but the thought didn’t lie easy with Charles. Still, he trusted Moira, and when it came to his children, Charles trusted Erik’s judgement even more.

She brought the three of them down some breakfast once Charles had changed into the woolen pants and linen shirt Moira had left for him, throwing on Erik’s jumper as well to keep out the cold. She explained that he had gone to check on the car before the pair of them went to talk to an informant of Moira’s, and she asked if Charles minded staying with the children.

“I know your telepathy could be useful, but we can’t take that risk.” She said ruefully, but Charles understood.

“Nonsense.” He reassured, giving Moira’s hand a squeeze before taking a sip of his tea. “I’ll do anything to help you both."

A flush settled over the tops of Moira’s cheeks, and Charles would bet money that it was from embarrassment, and he understood why when she held up a shopping list. “Well then I hope I’m not being cheeky…” 

Barking a laugh, he took the list from her, amused. “Of course, love.”

And so, an hour after Moira left, Charles slipped out of the shop, checking three times that the door was locked behind him before making light work on the list of errands that Moira had left him. It was hardly a comprehensive list, and he told the children he’d be back in half an hour, but he was finished in twenty. Clearly the fact that you had no neighbours to make obligatory chit chat to cut your shopping time right down, but in all honesty, Charles wanted to whizz through the list in as little time as possible, unwilling to leave the children alone for too long.

When he was done, he entered the shop again, locking the door behind him once more. After placing the basket of food down on one of Moira’s work benches, Charles made his way to the basement through the trap door under one of the shop’s heavy carpets.

“Wanda? Pietro?” He called as he descended the stairs, flipping on one of the lamps to help him see. “Don’t tell me you’re  _ still  _ playing hide and seek.”   
He checked the room, under the bed he and Erik had shared, behind the fishtank, in between boxes of dolls and toy soldiers, getting more and more manic in his movements as he searched and called after them for what seemed like hours. Tears started to stream down his face as he checked upstairs too, knocking over toy trains and almost slipping over marbles in his haste to search every inch of the shop. Suddenly, a hand grabbed his shoulder, and then he was staring up at Erik, just able to see the concerned line of his furrowed brow through the tears.

“Charles.” he said softly, wiping away tears with his thumb, which only made them flow harder and faster, and Erik’s voice became harder and more solid yet no less gentle, and Charles clung to it- clung to him. “What’s happened? Where are the twins?”   
And Charles, hopeless Charles, could barely stand to look at him, because he had one job, and he couldn’t even do that, and now everything was bad and Erik was shaking his shoulders and oh, he looked so scared now, and Charles drew in a deep breath, his voice cracking even though it was barely above a whisper and admitted what he hoped wasn’t true.

“They’re gone.”


	6. Chapter 6

“Charles will you stop pacing,” Erik asked from his seat at the table, his eyes closed and his voice strained, looking older than Charles had ever seen him. “I can’t think while you’re walking a hole in the floor.”

But the thing is, Charles wouldn’t stop, because if he stopped moving, stopped occupying himself, stopped biding his time, he’d have to think, and for all he loved to look inside other people’s mind, Charles’s own was inhospitable, made even more hostile by his telepathy. Anxiety lurked in the four corners of Charles’s brain, and the rest was- the only way he could describe it was cluttered. Not in the way his suite of rooms in Westchester were, strewn with papers and books and teacups. No, Charles’s mind was impossible to navigate without trodding on sharp ends, slipping on something coagulated and acidic, stepping into a dead spot and falling with no way of stopping. 

In the past month or so, a small space had opened itself up. The clutter had been swept aside until the floor was clean, and a glass cabinet was put in the new space, crystal corners brushing the locked chest he reserved for thoughts of Raven. The cabinet had been well lit, with spotlights shining on it in glimmering, pale beams, like strawberries bobbing in a flute of champagne. The cabinet filled, slowly but surely, with pictures of Erik and the children, and souvenirs of their time together: his warped sweets, a lock of Wanda’s auburn hair, a shell Pietro had gifted him on the beach. Slowly but surely, the cabinet filled, but each time something new was added, Charles added an extra lock and threw away the key, lest all the feelings the cabinet contained flooded his mind and cleared the dust and debris from his brain, leaving it clean and sparkling and safe.

That wouldn’t do. Charles didn’t know how to navigate without the darkness and the danger to guide him. Still, he couldn’t look at the cabinet now, couldn’t let his fingers brush the glass or finger the locks, because Wanda and Pietro were gone, and the cabinet was suddenly almost barren.

So he didn’t stop pacing. Some of his fear and panic must have bled over to Erik who merely sighed and tried his best to ignore Charles, turning to Moira instead.

“How do we get them back?”

“There’s a party at the palace tonight his wife’s birthday.” Moira said, not looking up from her dossier of papers as she spoke. “If we can get you in, use you to distract Shaw enough that we pass as just another honoured guest, we can go and look.”   
Charles halted, ignoring the tight furrow if Erik’s brow softening slightly in relief. “But how do we get in? Surely Shaw has every man at his disposal keeping an eye out for us?”

Moira sighed, scrubbing a hand over her face as she flung the folder down onto the battered kitchen table. “I have a plan. It’s not the most nuanced plan of action, but it’s guaranteed to work as long as neither of you fuck it up.”

Erik rolled his eyes, sardonic barb on the tip of his tongue, but Charles placed a hand on Erik’s shoulder before it could escape.

“What is it?” Charles asked, a sudden thrill of dread settling over him as Moira’s eyes sparkled.

“How do you feel about dolls?”

“This is absolutely ridiculous.” Erik grumbled from the back of the wagon, trying to loosen the collar around his neck. “I don’t see the point of this at all.”

“I’m supposed to be a toymaker Erik.” Moira rolled her eyes before swerving to the left, leading onto the main stretch of road that led them up to the castle. “I’m supposed to present his Queen a gift, and it’s obviously going to have to be a toy. All you have to do is stand still for five minutes while they look at you, and then we’ll be able to get you off and into the palace.”

Moira’s plan, no matter how outlandishly twee Erik thought it was, was practically fool proof. All he had to do was stay as still as he could. Surely it was simple enough?

Charles was silent beside him. The makeup Moira had painted on his face felt heavy and cloggy, like a layer of lead paint or mud, yet despite his discomfort, he tried his best not to disturb it too much. He moaned silently in his head, wanting desperately to lick his lips out of habit, but unable to do so lest he disrupt the gloss Moira had smeared over them (“Your mouth is ridiculously red already,” she half teased, half lamented as she painted his face, lining his eyes and rouging his cheeks. “It’s a shame it’s not lipstick. I’m awfully jealous.”)

In the end, when Moira had finished packing powder onto his face, he had been sure that his skin was made of actual porcelain, paler than he had ever seen it before. His lips, like Moira had said, looked especially red, offset by the bright hue of his eyes, made even bluer by the kohl lining the rims of his lids.    
Despite his grumbling and honest attempts to fight off her makeup brush, Moira had painted Erik too, yet not as girlishly as she had done Charles. Erik’s skin, already tanned by working outdoors when his studio became too stifling, was golden, bronzed by a shimmering powder that reminded Charles of hot chocolate powder. The razor point of his jaw had been sharpened even more by her brush, and the smudge of brown powder she had brushed across his eye lids made his gunmetal gaze softer somehow, yet no less piercing. As they stood next to each other in front of the floor length mirror in Moira’s room, Erik in peasant clothing, starched to look stiff and unmoving, Charles in the periwinkle silken blouse and tights he had seen the male dancers of the Parisian ballet wear, he thought, in a silly way, they made a fine pair.

He crushed the thought as quickly as it came.

The ride must have been shorter than he thought, as the next time he looked up, the grand arch of the castle gates were approaching up ahead.

Charles was startled by a hand on his arm, but he calmed as Erik guided him to stand. “Come on,” he said, opening the door of the box they were to stand in with a flick of his wrist. “Let’s get this over with.”

Erik climbed in first, standing in the groove of the pedestal Moira had carved for him, instructing the pair of them where to stand. He held his arm out for Charles, who graciously took it as he stumbled with the movement of the moving wagon. After stepping up onto the low dias, the door of the box shut, the only light coming from the holes on the roof of the box that allowed them some fresh air.

“Oh!” Charles yelped as they hit a pothole, causing Charles to lose his footing, stumbling backwards towards the edge of the dias, and he could feel himself reeling back- until a strong hand caught him around his waist, pulling him back onto the platform. Charles wavered, flinging a hand to Erik’s shoulder to hold on as he was pulled back upright. He glanced up once he was steady, thanks on the tip of his tongue, but he stopped short, ensnared by their proximity. He could feel every puff of Erik’s breath on his face, the vibrations from the turning wheels moving through Erik’s body, his strong hands gripping his waist-

“How should we stand?” Whispered Charles. “When we’re presented to Shaw?”

“Just like this,” Erik murmured, clasping Charles’s wrists to move his hands to settle more purposefully on Erik’s shoulders, before returning his hands to Charles’s waist to pull them closer together. Charles gasped. “Is that alright?”

Nodding, Charles looked up, and the stuffy air of the cramped box became even hotter as he found his face almost level with Erik’s, their lips just a tilt of the head apart, and want suffocated him suddenly, violently. So he tilted his head upwards, bringing his weight to rest on the balls of his feet, and then Erik was leaning down, their lips a hairsbreadth from touching and-

And he clutched his head as the warm blanket of Erik’s mind was sucked from him, like Erik’s vacuum, and then there was nothing, no voices, no feelings, no nothing, only the empty, cold cavern of his mind. The box jolted with every gallop of the horse pulling them along, and Erik reached his hands out, filled with the phantom sensation of a limb being torn off. He could feel no metal, couldn’t hear it singing out to him, waiting to bend at his will. He couldn’t hear Charles idle thoughts and affection in his mind. The world was suddenly painfully quiet.

“Dampening field.” Charles realised, and Erik could see the fear in his eyes.

They had entered the castle.

Emma Frost was bored. It had been her birthday for twenty whole hours, and nothing fun had happened yet. Sebastian, of course, had promised her a party to remember, but then again, Sebastian had promised her a lot of things: that she would never have to worry about her country’s stability again, that they will be the most revered mutants on the planet, a diamond the size of her fist, and so on, and so forth. So far, the only promise she could say that he had somewhat acted on was the second one, seeing as the amount of mutant violence had gone down, as had threats to her own person. She had asked him time and time again how he had managed to accomplish, but he had simply told her not to worry about it. As much as she liked to argue, this was one Emma had no strength in pursuing. She suspected the dampening field he had placed on the palace had something to do with it, which was ‘for her protection’ of course, or maybe it was that infernal helmet. It clashed so awfully with the drapes, Emma resented it. Still, Emma was bored, and that simply would not do.

Taking a sip of wine from her crystal glass, white of course, she took stock of the room, wondering who was next to present her with another banal gift to add to her growing pile, when the doors to the ballroom opened, and in walked Moira McTaggart, a large emerald box being wheeled in behind her.

Emma straightened in her seat, eyeing the box with a mirthful smirk tugging at her lips.  _ Finally, something worth my while.  _ McTaggart had a reputation around Genosha as being the greatest toy maker to ever grace their land. Her creations were amusing, yet constructed with such grace and detail that they could not simply be labelled as ‘toys’. No, what McTaggart created was art, the most wondrous form of entertainment that Emma couldn't help but look forward to her visits. 

“Ah, our very own Moira McTaggart,” Sebastian greeted from beside her, arms open wide in imitation of the benevolent ruler he tried so hard to show her subjects he was. “What have you brought for my wife this time?”

“My lord.” Moira greeted, smiling politely at Sebastian before turning to Emma, bowing just a little bit lower. “My lady. Many happy returns on this joyous day.”

Emma waved a gloved hand. “You’re too kind, Miss McTaggart.”

Inside the box, unbeknown to those outside of it, Charles shifted, trying to hear what Moira was saying over the rapid beating of his heart. Neither of them spoke, in agreement that to do so would be foolish and reckless. He wished now more than anything though to hear Erik’s voice now, murmuring comfort and reassurance in an accented whisper. Better yet, he needed these comforts spoken into his mind, breathed into every last one of his neurons. It seemed Erik didn’t need Charles’s telepathy to sense his anxiety though, and tightened his fingers against the curve of his waist.

For a moment, it soothed him, a balm against his frayed nerves, and he squeezed Erik’s shoulders in response. But then he could hear Moira, hear their cue, and he settled again, keeping his limbs locked and stiff in an imitation of the doll he was supposed to be.

“-present a humble gift from my humble shop for your Majesty.”

Then, he could hear the latches on the top of the box being undone, and he quickly schooled his face into a soft smile, closing his eyes lest he should blink and give up their game. The four walls of the box fell to the floor around them, at least stopping anyone from getting too close.

He heard a woman- who he could only presume to be Emma Frost- gasp, along with the rest of the party guests, a chorus of ‘ooh!’s echoing through the room, but Charles paid them no heed. He’d pay none of them any attention until he had done what he needed to do.

He fought to keep the serene smile on his face and his legs steady as Moira cranked the key in the side of the dias, just as they had practised, and he and Erik began to turn. His arms ached with the effort of keeping them still, his skin prickled as their audience began to clap and cheer, but with his head tucked beneath Erik’s chin, listening to the almost steady beat of his heart, Charles found that it was not such a hardship.

As soon as it had began, distracting himself with thoughts of Erik, they had come to a stop, the huff of his relieved sigh buried under the clapping of their audience.  _ They had done it. They’d made it in. They’d have Wanda and Pietro in no time and- _

As Moira began to enclose them in the fallen sides of the box once more, Sebastian Shaw rose from his seat, causing a hush to fall over the room. Moving from his throne, he walked over to Charles and Erik, the boundary of the fallen wood no deterrent, instead walking right over it.

Erik knew just from the sounds of his footsteps that it was Sebastian walking towards them, the slight limp from a sword to the knee many years ago never righting itself. Instinct told him to pull Charles closer, to protect him, but logic told him to stay still, as still as stone while his footsteps circled around them both. Erik is thankful now that he had hidden his face in Charles’s hair as the box had opened, more to hide his breathing than anything else, but one glimmer of recognition from Shaw now could cost him his life, Charles’s life, his children’s life-

“Excellent work, McTaggart.” Shaw drawled, and just the sound of his voice made Erik want to punch him. “How…  _ lifelike. _ ”

“Thank you, my Lord.” Moira replied. “Only the best for my Lady’s birthday.”

Shaw hummed, footsteps finally ceasing. “You never fail to deliver.”

“Thank you my lord.”

The footsteps started again, and Erik readied himself to endure another inspection, but they receded. Shaw had sat back down, and the walls of the box were being raised again and clasped back into place. Relief hit him like a freight train, and he allowed himself to slump over with the force of it. Charles had had the same reaction, and they were clutching each other to keep them upright, the tension filled silence between them broken by Charles’s soft laughter.

“We did it.” Charles whispered, his lips curling into a smile, eyes wet with glee and abatement. Buoyed by it, Erik grinned back at him, moving a hand to cup his cheek.

“I-”

He was quickly cut off by one of the walls coming down again and Moira coming into view. His hand dropped from Charles’s cheek as if he had been burnt.

“Come on.” She whispered, throwing a pair of course woollen pants, Erik's jumper and plimsolls at Charles and a wet cloth at Erik. “Change quickly. We haven’t got much time.”   
Erik rubbed at his face, the satisfaction of removing the heavy makeup from his face almost liberating. Charles quickly pulled up the pants over his tights and slipped his feet into the plimsolls before grabbing the cloth from Erik, turning it over and scrubbing at his face until most of the powder had been removed, his cheeks raw from the action and the khol leaving dark shadows under his eyes, his lips no less red as they had been before. Erik thought he was stunning.

That could all come later though. Now, Charles and Erik checked for any straggling guards or guests before slipping out of the box and following after Moira.

“Where would he keep them?” Erik asked, strides quick and efficient as he kept up with Moira.

“It’s not far from here.” She said, face set and steps sure as she led them through a narrow doorway Erik would have otherwise missed and down a winding set of stairs, pulling a torch from her pocket to guide their way in the darkness.

“In here.” She directed as they reached the bottom, standing guard at the bottom step as she ushered Charles and Erik to a large door, made of steel instead of wood, a thick padlock that would have kept it firmly closed snapped in half on the floor beside it.

He glanced over at Charles, who was looking at him with a question in his eyes. What did they have to lose? Answering with a shrug, Erik pushed the door open, winching at the way the metal scraped against the stone flags of the floor, stepping through into a- a cove?

The whole space had been carved by the waves of Genosha’s shore hitting the cliff the castle was built on, forming deep shelves in the walls, used as beds if the blankets were anything to go by. In the centre of the room sat a large fire pit, obviously used not only to fight off the chill of the ocean, but to cook food, as a young man, not much older than twenty, Erik suspects, with swarthy skin knelt over it, toasting a hunk of bread on a stick. After noticing one person, Erik suddenly noticed the rest of them, all sitting on the soft limestone floors or hiding in caverns, huddling together or staring them down defiantly on their own.

“Who are these people?” Charles asked as Moira pulled the door closed with a clunk.

Moira grinned. “My informants.”

Charles looked at them all in turn. More and more came out of the shadows, curious about the new voices. 

Stepping forward Charles introduced himself. “My name’s Charles Xavier. I’m a telepath. It’s a pleasure to meet you all.”

A boy stepped forwards, or at least Charles assumed he was a boy from under the masses of blue fur covering him head to toe. It was obvious that the dampening field had no effect on his physical mutation, not that Charles would want it to- Hank was magnificent. However much he thought so, he realised he must have been staring for an unkindly long time, if the pink rising on his blue downy cheeks were anything to go by.“Hank McCoy. I think you can guess what my mutation is.” 

Hank’s smile was sheepish as he held out his hand for Charles to shake, and Charles wished he could project some of his awe at the young man.

“What Bozo here means to say is-” Jibed a young man from Hank’s right, blonde and only an inch taller than Charles, but the smirk on his face was cocky as anything. “He had some big ass fit and turned himself blue tryna get rid of them. Alex Summers, I shoot plasma beams from my chest, how’s it going?”

“Don’t be such a dick, Alex.” Scoffed a voice from above them, as a young girl with olive skin and jet black hair flew down from the rafters, obviously pleased by Charles’s appreciative gasp, if the way she fluttered her dragonfly like wings was anything to go by. “I’m Angel. How come a couple of fellas like yourselves are in a place like this?”

“We’re actually here to look for someone.” Charles explained, Erik stalking over to stand next to him, swapping his usual standoffishness and squaline grin for earnestness.

“My children.” Erik said. “Twins, a boy and a girl, they-”

“Vati!” Came a shout from across the cavern, a “Charles!” swiftly following it. Wanda and Pietro came running at them, Pietro edging ahead of his sister, but not enough to be significant in her desperation to get to them. Charles and Erik had just enough time to turn around before they were barrelling into them, forcing both Erik and Charles to their knees with the force of it. Then, all there was was a warm, tight embrace. Charles was unsure which of the twins had flung their arms around his neck, but it didn’t matter, he hugged them back just as fiercely.

“My babies, Gott in Himmel, you’re both okay, tell me you’re both okay-”

“We were so scared-” sobbed Wanda.

“We thought we weren’t going to see you both ever ever again-” Pietro sniffled against Charles’s shoulder, and the telepath smoothed a hand over the hair of the back of his head and clutched him closer, shushing him gently. 

“And it was so dark until they brought us here-”

“But Uncle Az was there so we thought it was safe to go with him but he was in handcuffs-”

“But everyone looked after us and let us stay together-”

“Shhhh.” Erik cut them off, taking one arm from around Wanda to try and pull Pietro closer to him, but instead hooked it around Charles’s shoulder, bringing all four of them together. “It’s alright now, you’re safe now.”

The small family of Lehnsherr’s clung to each other, and Charles by extension, and as much as the warmth and relief wanted to manifest itself in tears, Charles knew this wasn’t his moment, wasn’t his family. Gently turning Pietro into Erik, he tried to extricate himself as softly as he could, but Erik wasn’t letting up. So, he turned to the group of young mutants, bigger now as others had joined to see what all the fuss was.

“Thank you for looking after them both.” He smiled at them, before turning back to Erik and the children. “I think it’s time for us to get your Uncle Azazel and get out of here, don’t you?”

“You cats know that it’s pretty much impossible to get out of here right?” Angel quirked her brow.

Alex nodded. “Yeah, nobody who’s tried to escape ever has.”   
“That’s because we haven’t tried together.” Said another young man, perhaps not much younger than Alex, with ginger hair and a slow, languid voice that made Charles want to curl up and sleep.

“What do you all say?” Erik asked, he and the children turning to the group with pleading eyes. “ Will you help us?”

Hank looked at Angel and Alex, words passing between them unsaid before the three of them nodded and Hank turned back to Charles.

“What do we do?”

“So where’s the control panel for the dampening field?” Charles asked, leaning over one of the maps of the castle Moira had to hand. 

As it turned out, there were more mutants here than Charles thought, and any of those over the age of fifteen were huddled around the maps with him, Erik, Hank, Angel, Alex and Moira, while the younger ones were rounded up.

“Right here.” Hank pointed a furry finger at a small closet near the main entrance. “Considering Shaw isn’t one for taking risks, I think it’s a simple enough system and easy enough that anyone could turn it off. Not that anyone who lives here would want to…”

“Do you think you could get to it and disable it?” Charles asked, but Hank shook his head.

“Looking like this? No way. I’d draw too much attention to myself.”

“I’ll do it.” Piped up Alex with a grin. “If Bozo says it’s easy enough to turn it off, I’ll turn it off. Or I’ll hit it with something. Either works.”

Charles clapped him on the shoulder. “Good chap, Alex.”

“What happens then?” Erik levelled. “Surely Shaw will realise something’s going on.”

“That’s when we storm the ballroom.” Replied Angel.

“I can use my telepathy to incapacitate Shaw and Emma, then they’ll need restraining. If Azazel has any sense, as soon as his powers return to him, he’ll be long gone, but I’ll be able to get to him.” It sounded far more simple to Charles than he liked, but it was the only course of action that made sense. Angel, it seemed, shared this opinion.

“It sounds too easy.”

“It won’t be.” Confirmed Erik, never one to sugar coat, even for children. “That’s why we need the rest of you in case that happens.”

“I’ll stay here with the younger kids while you all remove the field.” Jean, a telepath like Charles, was generally in charge of the younger mutants. “Once it’s gone, I’ll bring them up and we can all storm the ballroom if there’s any trouble. A hundred baselines can’t match a hundred mutants.”

Erik chuckled darkly. “I wouldn’t be so sure.” 

“But good thinking, Jean.” Said Charles, shooting her an encouraging smile and receiving one in return. “If we can get everyone out of here without the need for violence, I’ll let you know,” (he tapped his forehead) “and you can get the children out safely.”

Not even fifteen minutes later, they were in their positions. Erik and Charles huddled by the doors of the ballroom, the two guards usually stationed there knocked out in a cupboard somewhere, replaced by Sean and a boy named Scott who posed in their uniforms.

The pair stood on one side of the doors, with Moira on the others, waiting for the field to dissipate before commanding the room. It was risky, the closer to the room they got the harder Charles’s heart beat, but there was no way for them to back out now, not if they wanted to be stuck here forever.

But if it went wrong.

“Erik.” Charles whispered, causing Erik to whip his head around and look at him. And Charles really looked at him, giving in to the ever present urge to run his fingertip down the line of Erik’s jaw, catching the last specs of the glittered bronzer he had wiped from his face. This close, Charles could see every rough hair of stubble, every laugh line, the softness of Erik’s eyes- 

In case, he told himself, just in case, he was going to commit the sight to memory.

“Erik, I-” He breathed in deeply. “Just in case this goes wrong, I just- I need you to know that-”

And then, in one nauseating blow, every mind was dumped directly into Charles’s, the sudden influx of thoughts and feelings dizzying, and he had to clutch the wall behind him to stop him from toppling over. Just when he thought he had a grip on it, he was being pulled after Erik and Moira and into the ballroom.

Through the muddled haze of minds, Charles quickly found Azazel’s as he watched Erik rip the metal sideboard from the wall and form it into three spheres, weaving them through the loom of his splayed fingers. Charles none too gently shoved the suggestion at Azazel that he should get home now, and he hoped it worked, because he had no time to think when he had a hundred minds in his hands, making all of them stop in their tracks. That was, all except one.

“Erik, mein Klein, what a nice surprise.”

Horror and dread filled both of them, and Charles froze Moira where she was and told the rest of the group to stay as far away from the ballroom as they could and get out while they still can. He felt Erik push the unspoken question into his mind, but Charles sent back his confusion, unable to fathom how Shaw had resisted- It hit him.  _ The helmet. _

“Sebastian.” Erik seemed as calm as anything, but Charles could see, and feel, the anger and the hatred picking away at him, so he projected calm at him, and Erik stood taller, squaring his shoulders.“Can’t say I could say the same.”

“And with a telepath, no less.” He sneered, sparing a glance at Emma, who Charles had frozen in her seat. “I didn’t think you were so easily swayed by pretty faces.”

Something in Erik snapped and he swung, his fist connecting with Shaw’s jaw. Shaw, in response, grinned, and the next thing Charles heard was Erik’s deafening scream as he was pushed back by something, as if he had ran into a wall at full speed, the pain completely drowning his mind. Standing in front of Erik, a feral, jagged grin twisting his face, Shaw placed his hand flat on the top of Erik’s head and pushed, causing him to cry out in pain once more.

“Let us go.” Erik spat and Shaw laughed

“Now where’s the fun in that.” A grin pulled his face tight. “And besides, why would I let you go? Not when you owe me something.”

“I don’t owe you shit.”

“Language, Junge.” Shaw tutted. “And I think you’ll find you do. After all, wasn’t it me who housed you, fed you, clothed you? For all those years, I tutored you and protected you. I made you into the man you are today. Surely compensation for what you’ve taken from me is due.”

“Taken from you?” Erik scoffed, blood dripping from the side of his mouth, and Charles had to withdraw from his mind as the acidic hatred burnt him. “You killed my mother. Wasn’t that payment enough?”

“That was before you got on my bad side.” The grin was no longer there as he turned towards the door and clicked his fingers. “Janos.”

Charles felt it then, the dead weight in the sea of minds around him, a void, just like Shaw, and one of his henchmen strolled in, wearing a helmet similar to Shaw’s, dragging Wanda and Pietro behind him. Wanda yelled while Pietro tried to fight off his captor, pummelling his little fists against Janos’s side. Charles’s blood curled as Wanda screamed, catching sight of Erik, and she fought her way out of Janos’s grip, Pietro zooming after her in a streak of white.

“Vati no-!”

“Wanda darling, please-” Charles pleaded as he held the two of them back, barely feeling the punches the pair of them landed on him as he held them as close as possible, stopping them from getting any closer to Erik and, by extension, Shaw. It was then that Erik managed to turn his head around, trying his best to smile at his two children, fighting against the unbearable tide of pain and dread Charles could feel suffocating him.

“It’s okay, Schatzi.” 

“Please!” Pietro wailed, and Shaw chuckled.

“What a darling pair of children, Erik. I didn’t take you for the family type.” Erik spat at him then, and Charles felt pride swell through him as he saw it land on Shaw’s foot. “Perhaps I’ll take them from you too. And you’re pretty telepath.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Erik seethed, voice raw and loud as he struggled against Shaw’s hold, taking blow after blow as he aimed punches at whatever part of Shaw he could reach. “Beat me, kill me, whatever, but if you touch a hair on any of their heads I swear I’ll-”

“You’ll what?” Shaw sneered. “Kill me? Don’t make me laugh Erik.”

Wanda was all but screaming now, and it was all Charles could do to hold her back while he let his own tears fall. “No, Vati, no!”   
Sobbing, he pleaded. “Wanda darling, please-”   
“No, no, I want it to stop I want it all to STOP!”

And then it did. Just like that, just as she wanted, Shaw was frozen solid, his hand falling from Erik’s head. It was over. Charles fell to the ground, the horror and the dread leaving his body with each deep gulp of air while Erik crawled away from Shaw as fast as he could, not even waiting to watch Shaw’s body hit the ground before turning to Charles.

“Did she just-”

Stunned, Charles nodded.

“You-” Erik gasped, pulling Wanda to him, and then Pietro, fiercely kissing their hair. “Meine leibes, both of you, amazing.”

Not wanting to overstep or intrude, Charles pulled himself to his feet and shakily made his way over to Shaw, moving quickly lest he come back to himself, and ripped the helmet from his head before gripping all the minds in the room and sending out the mental command.

“Sleep.”

They all slumped down like rag dolls, and would stay like that for the next couple of hours at least. He made sure to ensure Moira would wake up earlier, so she could restrain the mad bastard and do whatever she needed to do with him. As Charles came back to the centre of the room, he heard the three Lehnsherr’s whispering in German, and although he couldn;t understand, from the blooming warmth in his mind, he knew they were words of love.

“Vati?” The silver haired boy asked, wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands.

“Yes, Pietro?”

“I want to go home.”

“Yeah.” Erik sighed, looking up at Charles. He looked tired, haggard, but, Charles had to admit, young. “Me too. Let’s go home.”


	7. Chapter 7

Wanda and Pietro slept as they travelled back home. Charles was wary of Erik moving the car such a long distance considering the state he was in, but Erik insisted he was fine, and his mind was bright and alert, so Charles allowed it, even if he did keep a closer eye on him than before.

They chatted idly on the way, more so to keep them from thinking about the fear that had wracked the pair of them not even an hour before. Erik was bursting with pride for both of his children, and they had, for now, concluded that Wanda’s mutation had something to do with probabilities and perhaps alternate dimensions, but she called it wish granting, so that is what it would be called until they could define it properly.

For all their conversation and joined minds, Charles couldn’t help but feel like his time with Erik was slowly running out. In one way, it was unfounded: there were no doubts about him and Erik seeing each other again. The way it was, it was almost inevitable that they would cross paths, but he still felt like this was the beginning of the end, so he stared at Erik longer than he should have and held his mind tighter against his own.

His worries were proven true when Erik pulled up at the gilded gates of Westchester, the house silent and asleep in the first rosy light of dawn. It felt silly, hoping he would go back and stay with Erik and the children, but he still couldn’t help but feel disappointed. Still, his heart clutched to any part of the man he could get, walking so close that their arms brushed as Erik saw him to the gate.

“Well,” Charles breathed, suddenly feeling awkward and shy under Erik’s gaze. “This is me, I suppose.”

Silence stretched between them as Erik looked up at the manor and Charles looked up at Erik, turning away as Erik turned back.

“I was thinking-”

“I don’t know-”

Chuckling, they both looked bashful, although Charles could see the strain behind Erik’s smile, like all of a sudden, back on English soil, the weight of the world dumped itself onto Erik’s shoulders.

“You first.” Erik offered, and Charles took a deep breath.

“I don’t want us to stop seeing each other.” He gushed, schooling his expression into something a shade less desperate than he felt, and his heart buckled as Erik winced.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” 

It was almost whispered, but it stung Charles all the same as if Erik had shouted it down his ear. Wounded, Charles took a step back, suddenly very insistent on putting as much space between him and Erik as possible, physically and mentally. “I see.”   
Erik winced again, probably from the force of Charles tearing their minds apart. “Don’t be like that Charles.”

“Don’t be like what?” He snapped. “Be upset? Upset that I thought you might have had some affection for me? That we might have had something more? That I let myself fall in l-”

Erik sucked in a breath and Charles fought off a sudden wave of nausea and tears, wiping a hand over his face until he had collected himself. Straightening himself he looked up at Erik, setting his jaw.

“Why?” Holding up a hand as Erik rushed to speak. “Why let me into your life, into your children’s lives, into your  _ mind,  _ if all you were going to do was drop me home and never speak to me again when it suited you.”

He could feel the fingers of Erik’s mind reaching out, practically screaming Charles’s name, but he refused to give in. It seemed Erik realised this and sighed.

“I just- I-” He floundered, before taking both of Charles’s hands in his. “Charles, I am not a rich man.”

“What and you think I care? You think all I’m interested in is money?” Charles fumed, ripping his hands from Erik’s, the hurt piercing him like a knife to the stomach.

“You should care!” Erik exclaimed. “Your family will care, your friends will care,  _ I  _ will care because I can’t give you what you deserve Charles.”

A pathetic sob was ripped from Charles’s lips as his shoulders fell. He had no more fight left in him now. “What, a good man at my side? A family?”

Erik bristled. “You know exactly that’s not what I mean.” 

Making a sound caught somewhere between a sigh and a scoff, Charles stepped back once more. “Just go, Erik.”

And then he turned and walked towards the gate, leaving Erik at war with his heart and his pride. Pride eventually won, and Erik’s footsteps echoed as he walked back to the car and his two sleeping children. 

“You know,” Charles called from where he stood at the gate, his head half turned towards the car, his profile illuminated in the rubescent wash of morning. “Just once, I would have liked to make a decision, a choice of my own.” Erik knew what, or rather who, Charles’s choice had been.   
He faced them fully now, one glistening tear marking a trail down the alabaster skin of his cheek. “You can’t let yourself be lonely forever, Erik.”

And with that, he was gone. It was only when Erik was home in bed that he realised Charles was still wearing his jumper. He didn’t sleep at all.

The months that followed their return home was both the fastest and the slowest of Erik’s life. Azazel was back safe and sound, though a little shaken at first, but he was back to his usual sunshiney self in no time. Still, he was hardly around, even more so now he had proudly declared he was courting someone, some shapeshifter Erik had never really learned the name of. He had his hands more than full with the children now, helping them to train each day, stretching their newly manifested mutations to their limits. (Pietro’s speed had come in a couple of days after they got home, and now he was both literally and figuratively running circles around Erik).

He also had a steady job now. It meant less time spent with the children, which broke his heart, but the fact he could buy them new clothes and shoes and better quality food more than made up for it. An old mechanic needed someone to take over his shop, so Erik had offered. Between the work he did on Magneto and his mutation, the owner was more than happy to pass the baton over to him. Every now and then, when the fair came back into town, Erik would make his way down and sculpt his little toys to earn a few extra pennies to put away for safekeeping. Maybe he’d go all out on Hanukkah presents this year. He could afford to do so, seeing as everyone loved his toys so much. Even Wanda and Pietro did, and they watched with rapt attention as Erik made them whatever they asked for,glad he could spoil his kids this way. He even made one for himself, two figures intertwined, one in peasants clothes, one in the fine silks of a ballerina.

One would think that Erik barely had any time left to think about Charles between his new job and raising two newly manifested mutant children. On the contrary, however, because all Erik seemed to do was think about Charles. Whenever Erik closed his eyes, he was barraged by a never ending stream of blue eyes and rosy cheeks. He was used to it now, the searing pain that wracked him every time he thought of Charles tearing his mind away now turned to a dull ache, one that never seemed to fade, no matter how hard he tried.

More than anything, it was Charles’s parting words that stuck with Erik. Loneliness had never been a problem for Erik, not with his children and Azazel around. But the more he thought about it, about the gaping cold emptiness Charles had left behind him, Erik believed them to be true. His head was stuck far too firmly in the past to realise that he may have had his future right within his grasp and had let it go.

So, after a long, tearful talk with Wanda and Pietro, Erik had cleaned out Magda’s old room. It had taken him the full day, and there were times he wanted to smash his head against the door and ask himself what he was doing, but finally, it was empty. Wanda wanted the clothes from her wardrobe, and Pietro sheepishly asked for one of her rings to wear, and Erik let them take whatever they wanted. In the end, he felt lighter. He had no idea what the room would be used for, maybe Wanda could move in when the twins decided they wanted separate bedrooms, but for now, it was nice to have it empty, to release his white knuckled grasp on what had been and start reaching for what is going to be. Despite everything, Erik wished he could see Charles just to thank him for that. It seemed he didn’t have to wait long.

Erik had gotten off early from work, only needing to fix a few kinks in a motor that was being picked up in the morning. He was in the middle of boiling the kettle when there was a knock on the door. The only person who had ever knocked on Erik’s front door was Wanda and Pietro’s school teacher, who had dragged Pietro home by the ear and had accused him of using his mutation to win a race they’d had and chewed Erik out about raising his children properly and not teaching them that cheating is okay. After giving her a piece of his mind, he’s surprised she had the nerve to come back.

“What do you want?” He snapped, opening the door, but instantly froze at the brown haired man who stood on his doorstep. “Oh.”   
Charles’s smile was small, but Erik found, not at all insincere. His hair was longer than the last time Erik saw him, in danger of flopping into his face with every turn of his head, but his eyes were no less blue and if anything Erik wanted him more.

His thoughts must have been loud, they had to be, but Charles showed no signs of having heard them. “Erik. May I come in?”

Somehow, Erik managed to let Charles in, offer him a seat  _ and  _ make him a cup of tea without falling over or freezing in shock. Erik desperately wanted to know why he was here, but after the way things were left between them, he thought it better to let Charles explain himself at his own pace.

“No Wanda and Pietro?” He asked as he accepted the mug with a grateful smile.

“No,” Erik replied. “They’re at school.”

Charles barked a laugh before he caught himself and blanched, looking up at Erik with wide eyes, but before he could offer the imminent apology, Erik chuckled, taking a sip of his tea. “I know, me too. I think you may have rubbed off on them.”   
This was, apparently, the right thing to say, and they both sipped at their tea in silence until Charles cleared his throat.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here.” He said, and Erik put his mug down on the table, turning to look at Charles, and he took this as a sign to continue. “You may be aware that my mother and my stepfather divorced not long ago, and in the meantime I came into my majority, which means I’ll have full control over my father’s company.”   
Erik smiled. “Congratulations, Charles. You must be-”

“But that’s not why I’m here. You see Kurt had the company produce a lot of products that were decreasing in popularity, out of sheer laziness I suspect. Anyway, the point is that we need something new that will boost sales and, well, I thought that maybe you’d allow us to buy your idea off you after all.”

Charles looked up at him shyly, but the cogs in Erik’s head were turning too loudly for him to notice. “So, you want to make my sweets? The ones with the holes in them?”

“Yes,” confirmed Charles. “After you left they were all anyone in the factory could talk about apparently. They’re such a wonderful concept and we could use duplicates of the machines you made and oh, Erik do say yes.”

What else could he do. “Yes.”

Standing from the sofa, Erik thought, for one dazzling moment, that Charles was going to hug him. It was quickly dashed, however, as he stuck out his hand. Erik stood up and shook it, refusing himself to get lost in those eyes again.

“Well then Erik.” Charles said as they walked to the front door, plans made for Erik to come and sign the papers in the morning. “Congratulations. It seems that you’re going to be a very rich man.”

After shooting Erik a tight, sad smile, Charles was gone again, the slam of the door ringing in Erik’s ears. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

Sprinting after him, Erik caught him just before he got into his car, grabbing his arm and spinning him around.

“Is everything alright Erik?” He asked, eyebrow knitted, and Erik took a second to catch his breath.

“I was just- I think the children would like it,  _ I  _ would like it, if you would stay for dinner.”

Something twinkled in Charles’s eyes that made Erik’s chest swell. 

“You would?”

Erik nodded, chancing a step closer to Charles. “Or you could, if you want, you know, stay. Forever.”

The grin that spread over Charles’s face was nothing compared to the brightness and the warmth that flooded into Erik’s mind, and for the first time in months, he felt like he could breathe. Gathering Charles in his arms, he pulled him close, wrapping his arms around Charles’s waist and breathing in the scent of bergamot and violets from his hair. Charles tilted his head up, and Erik couldn’t help but beam back at him. This time, when he tilted his head forwards, he had no reason to stop and finally,  _ finally,  _ Erik kissed him, the grins never leaving their faces.

As Erik scooped him up into his arms, carried him back to the house and dropped him into the couch, their lips barely parting even as Charles squealed with laughter, the future ahead of him seemed bright ahead of him and, for once, it didn’t seem quite so impossible after all.

**Author's Note:**

> come and say hi on tumblr @ charlesxavirs !


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